Too difficult! More cross-border companies are going to take their annual leave early...

Due to multiple factors, many cross-border companies have already closed for the holidays!

Maybe not long ago, the first question people asked when they met was: Have you done nucleic acid testing today? Now it has become: Have you done sheep testing today?

According to feedback, many employees of cross-border companies are gradually becoming "sheep", and the offices that were originally full of people are now empty.

As people are staying at home, many cross-border companies' businesses cannot be carried out normally, and tasks such as shipping and stocking have become more difficult. In addition, the number of orders during the Christmas peak season is low, so many cross-border bosses take the opportunity to take a holiday!

A large number of cross-border people have become "Yang Guo"! It is difficult for sellers to prepare goods

"Don't be so proud just because you haven't developed any symptoms yet, thinking you are the chosen one. You may be positive the next day." In the cross-border circle, the most popular topic recently is "little positive people" ↓↓↓

There are 23 people in the department , and I am the only one who is still sticking to it. I am a chosen worker.

Everywhere you go, you can hear coughing, and the number of people in the office is getting fewer and fewer every day.

There are a lot fewer people on the subway recently. In the past, you had to squeeze into the subway, but now there are many empty seats these days.

The ones on my left and right had already gone yang, leaving me shivering at my workstation.

There were more than 100 people in the office , but today there are only a few dozen left, and they have all passed away one after another.

I hope you get better soon. I don’t have much time to think about going to work.

Shenzhen right now is just like Chinese New Year, extremely deserted!

…

According to incomplete statistics, more than half of the company's employees have an attendance rate of less than 30%, and only a very small number have an attendance rate of more than 80%. "Half of the people in the operations department have not come, and the logistics department has been wiped out. We can't ship this week," said one of the sellers. Operations can work from home, but other employees who need to work in the company are in trouble after they test positive. Now it is difficult for the company to ship goods. There are only two people left in the company's warehouse to pack and prepare goods, which directly extends the delivery period for a long time. Now I am a little worried that the link will be out of stock. Factories are also having difficulty delivering goods. A friend of mine is running a factory, and he can't get raw materials recently, so the factory can't open temporarily. No matter which link in the entire supply chain has problems, it will lead to delays in delivery time, which has a greater short-term impact on business.

Foreign media previously reported that due to a sharp drop in demand for product imports in the European and American markets, the export volume of many Chinese products has declined. Therefore, during this year's Spring Festival holiday, Chinese factories are likely to stop production two weeks earlier than in previous years.

Now it seems that many factories may close their holidays even earlier.

" I never expected that in a large factory with more than a hundred people that we cooperate with, there are only two loaders available to work , and two containers are enough to keep us busy for a whole day . " Many factories are in a serious shortage of staff, coupled with insufficient orders. There have not been many orders since October, so it is inevitable that they have to take a holiday early.

Foreign trade factories are the source of supply for cross-border sellers, and their early holidays have brought great difficulties to sellers in stocking up. "The work efficiency of employees is already very low, and to make matters worse, the factories we cooperate with cannot deliver goods, and many businesses cannot be carried out. Many colleagues have already taken holidays, and I also plan to start thinking about taking holidays after New Year's Day." It is understood that because a large number of employees in cooperative factories are out of stock and cannot make goods, and many express deliveries have stopped, some sellers are now out of stock. Even if the factories return to normal in a few days, Amazon may not release the storage capacity, but the amount of stock is far different from last year, and this year will be much earlier than in the past.

The low order volume has also forced many cross-border companies to stay flat

At the same time, the sluggish peak season this year has also prompted many cross-border e-commerce companies to stay flat.

One of the operators said that when he just recovered and went to the company to work, he found that the number of orders was decreasing day by day. He was already thinking about when to go home for the New Year because the company might be disbanded.

"This year has been Mercury retrograde all year long. I didn't feel the peak season this year. I thought it was cancelled! When Prime Day didn't perform well in the fall, I consoled myself that Halloween would be a success. When Halloween didn't perform well, I consoled myself that Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday would be a success. When Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday didn't perform well, I consoled myself that Christmas would be a success..."

As a result, the Christmas sales season suffered another setback, which became the last straw that broke the camel's back for cross-border people.

Today is Christmas, a traditional Western holiday. On this day, Westerners often give gifts to each other, hold banquets, and add to the festive atmosphere with Santa Claus and Christmas trees. Christmas has also become a public holiday in the Western world and many other regions. Consumers usually go shopping on Christmas Eve, which is usually a good opportunity for cross-border sellers to make a big splash. However, this year's Christmas has subverted the sellers' imagination.

“Why aren’t Christmas products selling well here from the 10th to the 16th? In previous years, they were in the explosive stage and the hot sales would last until the 20th.” A seller said that this year’s peak season is even slower than the off-season, and the profit is far less than that in October . He has already given up on Amazon.

" The popular items were sold out early, and the slow-selling items cannot be cleared out even if we clear them out. " In fact, not all sellers' Christmas products are slow to sell, but this year more sellers did report "Christmas failure", and a surge in orders does not mean a surge in profits. A survey shows that less than one-fifth of sellers believe that sales and profits during the Christmas season have met expectations, and more than half feel that their products have failed or that the profits are average.

This year’s Christmas products are a bit unsalable. On Christmas Eve, many Christmas products are being discounted outside the site to clear out inventory, and they are being cleared out at a loss, because if most of the products are not disposed of before Christmas, they will basically be unsalable later , which is even more troublesome !

As for the reasons why Christmas and other peak sales seasons were cold this year, some industry insiders believe that low prices are an important factor. Once foreigners develop the habit of buying things at low prices outside the website, it is difficult for them to buy products at normal prices. At the same time, too many discounts were brought forward this year, and the discounts for Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday were also brought forward. Consumers have already bought the items they need early, instead of waiting until now.

In addition, poor logistics is also one of the reasons for the "drag". This year, Amazon's massive layoffs have led to a slowdown in warehousing and delivery speeds. Sellers have clearly discovered that the sales of products that are delivered before Christmas shown on the front page are still good, while the sales of products that are delivered after Christmas shown on the front page are much worse, and are getting worse day by day. The United States has been hit by severe weather, and workers in the United Kingdom, Germany and other countries have gone on strike, making tail-end delivery more difficult. The latest news shows that due to severe blizzards in many parts of the United States, the transportation of sellers' items has been delayed, making it difficult to deliver to consumers on time.

Amid the impact of the epidemic, logistics and other difficulties, sellers need to make better plans for inventory operations!