Base salary cut by 40%! Operations: No commission for a year

Prime Day is over, what will happen to the commissions that operators are looking forward to getting after the surge in orders?

During the Prime Day promotion, the performance and profits of many cross-border merchants were unsatisfactory. The operations staff couldn’t help but sigh: There is no hope for commissions again. I have already received a year’s basic salary and I don’t know when it will end!

Not only is there no hope for commissions, but the base salary of a number of operators in Guangzhou and Shenzhen has also declined to a certain extent. In contrast, due to algorithms and other factors, the base salary and commission of operators in some inland cities are relatively stable.

Many operators have not received commissions for a year

Before Prime Day , some cross-border companies asked operations to work overtime to boost sales, hoping to get high commissions after a surge in orders. Operations in the industry stayed up late to watch over the stores. However, after Prime Day , operations found that their wishes might not be fulfilled again.

During the just-passed Prime Day , many cross-border merchants did not see any improvement in orders. Some merchants with explosive orders were mainly clearing inventory, and their profits were already slim. Many even made a loss to gain sales. Compared with the indifference of European and American sites, many merchants had good performance on Japanese sites during Prime Day . However, the recent decline in the yen exchange rate has reduced the profits of merchants due to the exchange rate hedging.

One operator said frankly that he wanted to get some commission from the PD promotion, but most commissions are calculated based on profits. The company is losing money, so where does the commission come from? After the membership day, the bad life has become worse!

In fact, the cross-border operation situation has been bad this year. Many people have not received commissions for several consecutive months, and some have not received commissions for more than a year. More operational feedback is as follows:

“——I’m living on a basic salary, I haven’t received a promotion for a long time, and I don’t dare to lift a bucket;

——I haven’t received any commission since June last year. The company is still placing orders, but the profit is very small, so I can’t get any commission after calculation;

——Commissions are getting smaller and smaller, almost to zero, and the whole economy is supported by the basic salary;

——I am working for a low salary and I don’t know what to change to;

——I don’t know what commission is anymore. Maintaining perfect attendance is my last bit of stubbornness.”

As the operators said, not getting commissions has become the cruelest problem facing them. However, even in the case of not getting commissions, many operators dare not leave easily.

After the epidemic, online shopping demand soared. According to Insider Intelligence data, US e-commerce sales soared 36% from 2019 to 2020, and increased by 18% in the second year. Lipsman predicts that this growth rate will be lower than 10% for the first time in 2022. The slowdown in consumer demand, coupled with US inflation, has quickly cooled market enthusiasm.

Not only that, platforms such as Amazon have also increased various fees, merchants' operating costs and advertising costs have skyrocketed, price involution continues, clearing inventory seems to have become the top priority, and profits have been greatly impacted.

Under such circumstances, some operators expressed their thoughts helplessly: "I live on a monthly salary, with no commission in sight. I want to quit every day, but I get paid full time every month!"

Base salary cut by 40%! Boss: The company can’t get the money back

As the above operational feedback shows, many industry insiders said that in the Guangzhou-Shenzhen area where there are many cross-border merchants, the operation commission is basically directly related to the profit. If the company does not make money, the operation will not get any commission.

According to Li Wei, an insider, many cross-border operations in Guangzhou and Shenzhen are calculated based on net profit or gross profit, and some companies even include water and electricity costs. In this year's market, many companies' performance has declined, old products are shrinking, and new products are not being promoted. Moreover, after fake orders were banned, merchants have to invest more in advertising to keep orders. Various expenses are increasing, and after deducting costs, many companies cannot get any money back, or only get very little money back.

With less cash flow, the performance of cross-border companies is going downhill. Some operations staff may still be able to get by with a basic salary, but the basic salary of some operations staff has also been greatly affected.

According to Li Wei, in Shenzhen, experienced operators usually had to ask for a base salary of more than 10,000 yuan. Now this number has dropped to 6-7K, a drop of about 40%!

After some company accounts were blocked, layoffs broke out in the cross-border circle. Influenced by this news, some companies reduced the basic salary of operations due to damaged performance; some companies even defaulted on wages for operations.

The current state of operations directly reflects the current state of the entire industry. Compared with the operations in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the cross-border operations in some inland cities are relatively optimistic, which may be related to the fact that merchants in these cities are less affected by Amazon's account suspension.

Eager to retain talent, inland cities offer higher commissions to operators

Wang Feiyu, a cross-border merchant in Zhengzhou, said that the base salary of operators in Guangzhou and Shenzhen is generally higher, and Zhengzhou cannot reach it due to the different consumption conditions in the cities. However, there are certain differences in the commission methods of the two places. Operators in Guangzhou and Shenzhen generally get a commission of 3-5 points, calculated based on profits, and some companies will also include all operating expenses in the calculation.

The operating commission rate in Zhengzhou is relatively high, generally starting at 4 points, and basically ranging from 4 to 8 points, with commissions paid in a tiered manner based on performance.

Li Tiancai, a cross-border merchant in Zhengzhou, said that the commission rate of Zhengzhou operations is indeed higher than that of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and his company's commission rate is as high as 10 points. Moreover, many Zhengzhou companies do not include miscellaneous expenses such as water and electricity in their calculations.

"If the operation team has to think too hard just to calculate that little bit of miscellaneous expenses, it will be very unprofitable for the company!" said Wang Feiyu.

Li Tiancai agrees with this statement. According to him, Zhengzhou is different from Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Although some operation talents have appeared in the past two years, good operation talents are really scarce. In many cases, a company has to train an operation from a rookie, which may involve very high costs. After waiting for an operation to grow up, the company certainly wants to keep the trained talents. The most sincere way to retain people is salary. In addition to giving a relative basic salary standard in the same city, the commission points for operation will also be increased. But even so, some operations will go out independently after graduation.

Zhang Juan, a cross-border merchant in Zhengzhou, shared her experience. In 2018, she opened an Amazon account after hearing the introduction from a friend in Shanghai, trying to seize online sales opportunities. However, after the account was opened, she could not find an experienced operator. She was operating other platforms and had no time to take care of new accounts. She was also confused about Amazon operations. As a result, after trying to figure it out for a few days, she gave up completely. The epidemic in 2019 and 2020 pushed up sales in online channels. Seeing her friends around her experiencing an explosion on Amazon, Zhang Juan regretted it a little.

In Zhang Juan's opinion, if Amazon had been operating well in Zhengzhou at that time, she would not have missed the opportunity to join in.

Today, Guangzhou and Shenzhen still have the largest number of cross-border merchants, but as the industry matures, the number of cross-border e-commerce companies in Zhejiang, Shandong, Henan and other places is also increasing, and the entire industry is expanding to more inland cities. Merchants in these regions also have a certain demand for operational talents, and they hope to recruit some capable operational talents, which also brings opportunities for more cross-border operations.

In fact, the vast world for operations talents is not only in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but also across borders!

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