Cross-border e-commerce is in a slump? A group of newcomers are still starting businesses

As the internal competition intensifies, cross-border sellers' orders and profits have both declined. Some people are considering how long they can hold out at a loss, while others want to enter the market at this time to take a gamble. Uncovering the various survival situations of small and medium-sized sellers, it is full of pressure and confusion.

Under the heavy pressure, a number of companies have closed down, so some cross-border people are happy to get a 4-month extra-long annual leave. However, when it comes to future development, more people still have no direction.

New sellers enter the market and work alone, and old sellers are confused

Amazon's autumn sales have come to an end, and sellers are complaining that most of them are not satisfied with their orders and profits. In fact, not only during this period, but also since the beginning of this year, Amazon sellers have been reporting that their sales are sluggish and their profits are declining.

The overall market downturn seems to have become a common perception among cross-border people. At this time, more sellers choose to streamline their products and reduce their scale to protect themselves. Some sellers even quit the circle and change their careers, but at this time there are still people who want to start their own businesses.

A cross-border person who chose to join the game said that he had worked for two years, experienced two small companies, opened German and American sites, and achieved certain results. His usual work was basically product selection and operation. He now wants to quit his job and work alone with 100,000 yuan. He thinks that now may not be the best time, but he really wants to take a chance. At worst, he can continue to be an employee.

Coincidentally, there is another entrepreneur who is preparing to work alone on Amazon recently. He has been working in this industry for 6 years and has accumulated certain resources and has some operational foundation. As he gets older, he wants to end his working career by starting his own business.

For those trying to enter the market, more cross-border people believe that although the overall market conditions are not good, there are still opportunities to work alone, but they must also think about the retreat before doing anything.

First, you can try part-time work to see if you can adapt to the pace of doing everything by yourself, such as product selection, link posting, and complaints; secondly, a store needs a lot of time to grow in the early stages, so you can wait until the store is on the rise before quitting; finally, you must dare to try the things you decide to do. Hesitation and wandering will eventually consume yourself and make you easily have mental burdens.

The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago and now. Many cross-border practitioners use this to motivate themselves.

However, some veteran sellers also bluntly said that working alone is not about courage. You cannot only see others making money but also ignore others getting heavily in debt.

A seller who has just started a business said frankly that he feels a lot of pressure now. After opening an account, he launched two products. One was abandoned because the competitor sold it at a loss. The other one monopolized 80% of the market and still had orders, with an average of 10 orders per day and almost 0 net profit. He runs a small business and uses his salary to subsidize his business.

Entrepreneurs who have been working on their own for a period of time face greater pressure.

An entrepreneur started a business with a friend in the second half of 2020. They lost more than 90,000 yuan before the beginning of the year. The following year, they invested an additional 700,000 yuan to create the first hit product, and began to make a profit at the end of the year. In the second quarter of this year, with the intensification of competition and the prevalence of low-price internal circulation, the company began to suffer continuous losses. The entrepreneur lamented: "After two years of entrepreneurship, I have not received any money. Now I have no new products and no profits, only anxiety!"

Another seller who started working part-time at the end of 2018 was also confused. He said that in 2020, he caught up with the bonus of the epidemic, and his orders had an explosive growth, earning a net profit of 1.52 million. 2021 started well, but then the industry competition intensified, and orders and prices continued to decline, with a net profit of 380,000 a year.

After working alone for two years, he made nearly 2 million yuan. However, this profit did not continue. This year, the seller felt like he went from heaven to hell. Product sales further declined, operating costs soared, and profits further shrank. The average monthly income dropped to around 10,000 yuan. If he continued to advertise, he would lose money.

Orders are declining, there is no profit, and I don’t know how long I can continue to lose money. This has become a pain point for many sellers. Persist? Transform? Work part-time? Sellers don’t know what to do.

As competition intensified, some entrepreneurs left the market at a loss. In 1990, a seller lost 300,000 yuan a year due to infringement of the store; in 1995, a seller worked alone and owed 600,000 yuan a year, and was ready to go back to being an employee...

Sellers who are interested in starting a business at this time have a certain confidence and vision for Amazon business. But for sellers who have been struggling on the platform for a long time, this is obviously not a year that can be easily dealt with.

A cross-border company starts its annual holiday today

Recently, an operations staff member revealed that due to the sharp decline in the company's sales, there is no work that requires everyone to continue to work in the company. The company decided to take a four-month holiday from October 15, 2022 to February 15, 2023, and return to work next year. If the order volume has not increased by the end of the holiday, the holiday will continue. If the order volume increases, everyone will be notified in advance to go to work. The estimated length of the holiday will be between 3 and 6 months.

Although it is a holiday, the company will still pay 60% of the salary and commission during this period. The boss also wishes the employees "Happy New Year and all the best". This paid holiday makes many cross-border workers envious.

It is understood that the company is engaged in summer products and has made a long holiday arrangement due to the current sharp drop in sales. Therefore, while the operator is happy, he is also worried about whether the company can continue to operate normally next year.

Yesterday, a company in Henan Province also started to take holidays. The company said that due to force majeure, it decided to temporarily take holidays from October 14, and the specific working hours will be notified separately according to the situation. However, its employees are not as lucky as the above-mentioned peers. The company requires them to take their computers home and they will not receive any salary during the holidays. However, in order to avoid business problems, employees will still choose to work overtime at home.

In fact, under the operating pressure this year, some companies have been reducing staff or improving labor efficiency.

At the beginning of this year, the industry changed the practice of long and short weeks. Many companies such as Yibai, Saiwei, and Tongtuo announced the implementation of two-day weekends, which made practitioners very excited. But the good times did not last long. Some companies that tried two-day weekends changed back to long and short weeks. Some companies even shortened the rest time. One operator said that the company had just changed from odd and even days off to one day off every week.

On the other hand, the growth rate of the cross-border e-commerce industry has slowed down, and one manifestation of this is that it is generally difficult to launch new products this year. One seller said that among the five new products launched in the middle of the year, two barely gained a foothold, and the other three were being cleared out, which was equivalent to a waste of time; another seller did not successfully launch a new product in the whole year.

Market growth has slowed down, while practitioners are approaching saturation, which has triggered a new round of reshuffle.

Due to the difficulty in getting commissions and the decline in salaries, some operations staff wanted to change companies for better development in the first half of the year. However, the number of companies hiring in the market has greatly decreased, and it is difficult for them to find a company that satisfies them in terms of salary, development prospects, etc. after leaving their jobs. They may even face a window period of several months. Therefore, operations staff no longer change jobs easily, unless they are very capable. After all, in the current environment, as long as they have a job, they will earn money.

There are also companies that proactively reduce staff and slim down for the winter, and at this time, operations and other personnel are forced to resign. One operations staff member was very helpless. His company lost money and was dissolved. He could not even get his employees' wages, let alone compensation. There were frequent news of layoffs in the industry. A few companies could not continue to operate, and the bosses turned into employees.

Cross-border e-commerce is still growing. While some sellers have withdrawn, new sellers are constantly joining the industry and gaining a foothold. However, compared with sellers who entered the market earlier, this year's newcomers are obviously facing greater competition and it is more difficult to retain them.

Entrepreneurship

Market downturn

Cross-border e-commerce