The billion-dollar seller is facing severe operational difficulties and has forced its employees to sit out for 6 months!

It was revealed that a cross-border seller asked its employees to stay at home for 6 months...

In the past two years, news of layoffs and salary cuts at major cross-border export companies has become common. The latest news shows that a well-known billion-dollar retailer in Shenzhen has asked its employees to take an extra-long vacation of 6 months due to serious operational difficulties. In other words, they have been suspended from work and are on standby. The regulations have come into effect since September 3.

The news sparked widespread heated discussions, and many people were also confused: All employees of the company have to stop working and wait for their turn? How to calculate the salary of employees during the period of suspension? ...

As usual, the majority of cross-border sellers are now welcoming the annual export peak season, which is theoretically a busy time. However, the news that this big seller asked its employees to stay at home at this time has inevitably led to speculation about the company's subsequent business development.

Shenzhen cross-border seller asks employees to stay at home for 6 months

The following is the specific content of the revelation by an employee of a Shenzhen cross-border company ↓↓↓

In recent years , due to the great changes in the cross-border e-commerce industry and the continued impact of the new coronavirus epidemic, the company's operations have been in serious difficulties. In order to alleviate the company's operating pressure, the company has decided after research :

Starting from September 3, 2022, you will be given a temporary six-month suspension of work and a long vacation. According to relevant national laws and regulations, the salary calculation standards and subsequent work arrangements during the suspension of work and waiting for work are as follows:

First, those who have not taken annual leave, adjustment leave or other paid leave during the holiday will be included in this long vacation and the company will give priority to arranging for them to be taken ;

Second, during holidays, wages shall be paid in accordance with the standards stipulated in the Wage Payment Regulations and other relevant laws and regulations ;

Third, during the holidays, relevant employees are requested to keep communication open. If the company makes any adjustments, they will be notified at any time to resume work depending on the situation, and they must return to work within the specified time after receiving the notification.

From the above revelations, we can conclude that during the 6-month extra-long vacation, the company will pay the employees the minimum guaranteed wage in accordance with regulations. Of course, the company will also decide whether the employees should end their vacation based on the specific circumstances.

There is no doubt that this incident caused heated discussions in the cross-border circle as soon as it was exposed, and netizens' attitudes were divided into several groups.

Some people think that they can accept the company's proposal to provide a basic salary for half a year. During this half year, they can not only find time to learn the skills they want to learn, but also slow down the pace of life, killing two birds with one stone.

However, some netizens disagree with the company's approach and believe that the Shenzhen seller's approach is actually a disguised layoff. In six months, they only pay employees the minimum guaranteed salary. This money is simply not enough to support rent, food and other living expenses for Shenzhen "workers". Employees will definitely take the initiative to resign after they can't stand it. In this way, the company's purpose of layoffs is achieved. After all, the company needs to pay N+1 wages for proactive layoffs. Moreover, even if employees want to stick with it for six months and are laid off by the company after the expiration, the company will need to pay much less compensation to employees because their wages will be diluted.

An industry insider said that due to poor management and tight cash flow, the Shenzhen seller began to lay off employees. Many employees had already been forced to leave before the announcement of the suspension of some employees. The industry insider also said that although the company has a large layout and seems to be strong, it is actually empty inside and has no core technology and core competitiveness. In addition, it is highly dependent on third-party e-commerce platforms such as Amazon. During the epidemic, it made wrong judgments and blindly expanded its product categories. The wrong business direction, large-scale stocking led to too much inventory in the warehouse, and the account was blocked, which put serious pressure on the capital situation.

People familiar with the matter said that when Amazon blocked its accounts, the cross-border e-commerce company had already started several large-scale layoffs, so much so that they have received more than 100 resumes from employees of this company since the second half of last year.

In addition to this Shenzhen big seller who asked his employees to stay at home, there have been recent reports that another leading big seller has also taken a similar approach, allowing employees to suspend work and wait for re-calling after the company's business resumes. At the same time, the company has also adjusted the salary performance of its employees.

In addition to big sellers, some small and medium-sized sellers also started performance system reforms when the peak season was approaching. The employee said that he was doing cross-border e-commerce in his hometown. Although the company did not say that it would lay off employees, due to the overall poor profit this year, the company has already started reforms in commissions , year-end bonuses and other systems. After the adjustment, not only overtime pay, full attendance bonuses, and even year-end bonuses are gone, but the commissions received have shrunk a lot. As a result, the overall salary of almost most employees has decreased. The employee predicted that if the peak season is not profitable again, the company will definitely take other actions to reduce wages or lay off employees.

According to another Amazon operator, he experienced two major layoffs this year. The first company he worked for laid off hundreds of people, and the Amazon department of the company he recently left also cut from nearly a hundred people to only a few .

"Most of the cross-border sellers in China are having a hard time now. Transformation is difficult, and too much inventory is causing a shortage of funds. Layoffs or salary cuts are the most normal situation. Some small and medium-sized sellers are also in danger due to the overall environment and can only lay off employees to save their lives."

A series of news has come, triggering people's thinking about the development prospects of cross-border e-commerce, and also making workers in the industry feel a lot of emotion.

"Amazon operators switched to selling stewed food" spread across the cross-border circle

As we all know, many cross-border companies have reduced their staffing needs this year . In addition to the decline in income, the employees in the company no longer have positive fantasies about the entire cross-border e-commerce. Every day, they have countless thoughts of wanting to resign , but they have not resigned because they can't think of what they can do in a different career! However, every time the topic of changing careers is discussed, they are always eager to participate.

A few days ago, a picture with words such as "Amazon operator switched to selling braised dishes" and "Amazon guy offers free tasting and 10% discount on purchase" went viral in the cross-border circle. Just when many netizens thought it was just a prank photoshopped picture, many people in the industry have come forward to say that this is indeed the case.

Several cross-border people said that they had eaten the stewed food here and found it very delicious. They praised the owner of the stewed food shop as a "stewed food master who was delayed by Amazon's operations"...

"After I quit working for Amazon, I will switch to selling snacks and fried skewers on the street!" This is exactly what many cross-border workers have thought of when they were imagining leaving their jobs. They think that they only need to invest in equipment and set up stalls in shopping malls or schools with large traffic, and the daily turnover will be very considerable. Many people just talked about it, but in real life, some people really put this idea into practice after changing their careers.

As for the reasons for wanting to change careers, everyone has their own difficulties. Many employees said that the reason they were overwhelmed was that it was difficult to promote new products and there was no commission. "This year's Amazon operation, the old stores have only one task - clearing inventory; the new stores can't promote new products, so they can only fall into the same fate as the old stores - clearing inventory..." Many other employees said that the complex company system persuaded them to quit; of course, there are many other reasons, which can be summarized as "give up fantasy and change careers as soon as possible."

The traditional peak season is coming! Many cross-border sellers: The peak season is no longer prosperous

Whether it's a cross-border retailer asking its employees to stay at home for six months, or "Amazon operations switching to selling braised dishes", each piece of similar news can arouse people's heated attention and discussion after it is exposed, and it is worth further investigation at this time.

As we all know, it is the traditional peak season for cross-border e-commerce. As expected, this time of year is a great opportunity for a large number of sellers to show their strength. However, at this time when it is about to be busy, the big seller asked some employees to "go home and rest". What does this mean? Industry insiders speculated that this means that the big seller has not yet ushered in the imagined order explosion, or after prediction, it is "dead hopeless" about the peak season in 2022.

We don’t know the real thoughts of the big sellers yet, but after understanding, the editor found that there are indeed a large number of small and medium-sized sellers who are not optimistic about this year’s peak season:

September, the golden and silver month, does not seem to have ushered in the peak season as imagined in the first half of the year .

We worked hard to stock up during last year’s peak season, and the main task during this year’s peak season is to clear out the stock that was stocked during last year’s peak season.

August is actually quite important , like the watershed between the peak and off-peak seasons . At the moment , the situation does not seem optimistic .

As soon as August arrived last year, the number of orders increased significantly, but I didn’t expect that sales in August this year would be even worse than in July .

We finally got through August and thought September would be better , but who knew that the advertising and sales performance in the past few days would be even more terrible .

…

Many cross-border sellers said that it is already September this year, and there is no feeling of peak season yet. According to this development trend, the situation will not be better in the future. It is understood that since the end of Amazon Prime Day, a large number of sellers have said that the order volume is very bleak. At that time, they did not care and thought that the situation would improve in the next month. Who knew that the advertising costs would be unbearable to look at, and ACOS would also go off the charts . A link with 10 orders a day can be considered a good product. But it is still unstable. The order volume almost drops to the bottom when the weekend comes!

" With the same advertising expenditure , the conversion rate is much lower than last month. Adjusting the ads and adding bidding has not had much effect. Many words that used to generate orders now only get clicks but no conversion or have poor conversion rates. ACOS has soared. I have been doubting myself in August . The sales in September are not good at the moment. They say the peak season has arrived, but I am still in the off-season . The sales are average and the profit is not as good as before ." One of the sellers said that it can be clearly seen from the sales situation on Amazon that the market demand has indeed declined. For the same link and the same ranking position, the daily sales volume last year is almost halved compared to this year.

After giving up hope for the peak season, many people said they would choose to stock up cautiously, and the stocking quantity would definitely be much lower than in the past. " This year's flash sales have not been very effective, so I still plan to stock up according to the usual sales volume during the peak season , and cut the storage capacity in half, just enough to be used, and just want to get the money back . " When it comes to Amazon's crazy cuts in storage capacity some time ago, many sellers don't care: it's fine if the storage capacity is cut, it's like we really have too much goods to ship!

Sellers have relatively less inventory, so factory owners have naturally felt the chill. "Cross-border e-commerce bosses are not stocking up as aggressively as last year. The output value is so low this year that many of their peers have started taking long holidays."

Logistics companies are not immune. In the past, logistics prices at this time would inevitably be complained by sellers as being expensive, and the attitudes of major shipping companies would inevitably be a bit "arrogant". However, this year, the voices of sellers "complaining" about prices have been greatly reduced, only because many shipping companies are often miserable and have to look everywhere for goods to load on board, and prices have also fallen a lot. It is understood that the CCX launched by Matsonia in July 2021 to cope with the supply and demand situation during the peak season will make its last voyage to China. Matsonia 026E will leave Ningbo on September 6 and leave Shanghai on September 8.

At the same time, Amazon has also begun to close FBA warehouses on a large scale due to slowing sales growth . The latest news shows that Amazon has closed or stopped plans to open 42 facilities, with a total available space of about 25 million square feet. Amazon has also canceled some projects in Europe...

When will the sluggish sales situation return to normal? Will the exchange rate break 7?

There have been many analyses of the reasons for the "sudden downturn" in the cross-border e-commerce environment this year . To put it simply, as the global epidemic continues to evolve, the uncertainty of the world economic recovery has increased, the growth prospects of major economies are not optimistic, consumer willingness is insufficient, and the momentum of external demand expansion has slowed down. It is difficult for foreign trade companies to obtain orders. Looking to the future, people are focusing on: When will the sluggish sales of cross-border sellers improve?

Pessimists think that this situation this year will become the norm in the future. Cross-border e-commerce is being targeted by more capital, and small and medium-sized sellers have a smaller chance of making a breakthrough. "You think this year is the worst year, but when you look back in a few years, you will find that this year is actually the best year."

Optimists believe that cross-border e-commerce is still profitable and the situation will start to improve soon. Many companies hold this view. Weibo blogger "Factory Manager in the Wind" said that many cross-border people feel that there are no orders now because it is the worst time and the overseas market is still digesting excess inventory. Once the inventory is digested, the cross-border market will gradually improve.

As a foreign trade practitioner with more than ten years of experience , he stated in detail that the current export of consumer goods is a bit sluggish and many factories are on holiday. In the final analysis, the biggest reason is that there is too much foreign inventory, followed by inflation in markets such as Europe, the United States, and Japan. Rising prices have affected consumers' enthusiasm for consumption .

It is a fact that the US and other markets are clearing inventory. According to a factory manager, the sales speed of their US customers has indeed slowed down a lot. When preparing stocks, dealers who originally had warehouses prepared according to 2 months of sales volume. Now the same inventory will take 4-5 months to sell out, resulting in their own shipments in August and September dropping by more than half.

However, with the consumption of inventory and the depreciation of the RMB exchange rate , in about 2-3 months , demand in overseas markets should gradually recover and return to normal purchasing volumes.

Other optimists said that there will be major holiday promotions such as Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday coming up. After these activities have digested the excess inventory in overseas markets , the export market will most likely return to normal.

As the largest market for Chinese exporters, the United States' every move naturally concerns people, including the important factor affecting profits - exchange rate. Yesterday, "the offshore RMB exchange rate against the US dollar fell below 6.99 yuan" once rushed to the top of Weibo's hot search. Since the beginning of this year, the US dollar exchange rate has almost been rising all the way, which is good news for the majority of exporters. According to the current trend, many industry insiders have speculated that the US dollar exchange rate will break 7 in the near future.

What is certain is that the appreciation of the US dollar exchange rate has indeed increased the profits of the majority of export sellers and also given them a certain degree of confidence.

China's overall foreign trade exports are transforming towards high quality and high value-added

Judging from the data, the overall development of exports is still in a growth stage.

According to the latest data released by Wanlihui at the "Trade in Services Fair", in the first seven months of this year, the number of applications from Chinese small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce sellers to open stores on overseas platforms through the Global Voyage service increased by 720% year-on-year. In the first seven months of this year, despite the impact of the epidemic, Shenzhen's cross-border e-commerce export business volume did not decline but increased, increasing by 2.7 times year-on-year, and its scale remained at the forefront of the country.

However, as China's overall foreign trade exports are undergoing a comprehensive transformation towards high quality and high value-added, some categories are inevitably facing a survival crisis.

In the past , small and medium-sized enterprises, especially those that copied overseas hot products , could sell out the products as long as they immediately seized the opportunity to quickly produce and copy them. To a certain extent, in the past few years, the core growth trend of small and medium-sized enterprises was driven by the high growth formed by the internal driving force of the demand for overseas targeted goods and the overseas increment, traffic acquisition, and crawling capabilities. However, in this environment in the past two years, the market dividend has gradually disappeared, and the competition among enterprises will inevitably turn to the management capabilities of the entire process of fulfillment of transactions, delivery, foreign trade, and order management, as well as the improvement of the entire foreign trade compliance service capabilities, in addition to the traffic dividend and the hot product dividend. This requires Chinese export enterprises to not only have the ability to open up high-quality sources, the ability to control costs and ensure the certainty of delivery and fulfillment, but also to have stronger sustainable development capabilities at the level of overall operating efficiency .

In summary, from the perspective of the overall business sustainability of merchants, sellers in the export chain must change from the so-called opportunistic model to sustainable operations, cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and improvement of comprehensive management and governance capabilities.

"Amazon operators changing their careers to sell braised dishes, or changing their careers to become civil servants may happen every day. While you are changing your career and leaving, there are actually people who have seen the huge opportunities in this industry and are changing their careers to join Amazon." A cross-border seller said that this is true in any industry, where the fittest will survive and opportunities are hidden in challenges.