The enthusiasm for opening new accounts has dropped sharply! Amazon sellers say it is "difficult to do"

After the beginning of the year, the Amazon industry did not see the same high tide of opening stores as in previous years. Some sellers pointed out that "it's hard to do, and I haven't opened a new account this year." Sellers are not proactive in opening accounts, which has attracted active inquiries from investment managers. However, with the current low orders and poor profits, after experiencing the twists and turns of last year, many sellers have suspended expansion and chosen conservative operations.

The number of sellers opening new accounts has decreased, and the investment manager came to inquire

After the Chinese New Year, there is usually a rush to open Amazon stores. However, some sellers have found that compared to previous years, no one has asked for the contact information of the investment manager this year. Other sellers were also surprised: "The investment manager actually added me a few days ago. In the past, I never got a reply." "The investment manager even asked me if I was not going to open an account this year. I think you are doing well in Europe."

One seller explained the reason: "It's hard to do business. I haven't opened a new account this year." Not opening a new account is the choice of many Amazon sellers this year. In just one year, the industry went from empty streets to gradually cooling down. How did this transformation happen?

Industry sellers analyzed that the 2020 epidemic was a major boon to e-commerce, and many sellers on Amazon saw positive growth in revenue and profits, earning huge profits. At the beginning of 2021, a large number of start-ups came to the market, and old sellers were also confident in actively expanding their operations and preparing a large amount of goods in anticipation of a new round of traffic explosion.

However, things went against one's will. A large amount of shopping demand in the market had been overdrawn in 2020. The purchasing power of buyers decreased, the epidemic in Europe and the United States gradually slowed down, and the popularity of online sales was far from the previous year. The backlog of inventory forced some sellers to start lowering prices, and then the price war spread to multiple categories. After the account suspension wave, a large amount of inventory was sold off, and sales involution intensified. In the end, a large number of products were unsalable, and many sellers ended up with high revenue and low profits.

In many cases where companies were unable to continue due to severe operating losses, the entrepreneurial companies that came here last year were the first to be affected.

One seller summarized: last year there were a large number of pioneering companies, this year there are a lot of clearance pits. Another seller was deeply touched: "It's too real, 8 out of 10 are clearing out their stock." A big V seller advised his peers, suggesting that big sellers who are considering electric fans and tower fans should not enter the market this year. The reason is that there is still a large backlog of inventory of such products. Including himself, 2/3 of the goods that arrived in the United States last year have not been sold out, and they have to wait until this summer to clear out the stock.

Currently, due to the large amount of inventory to be digested, the sales prices of products on the platform are still generally low. According to feedback from many sellers, although advertising, delivery and freight costs are much higher than in previous years, there are still products that continue to deepen their internal competition regardless of costs, and sellers in the same category are complaining bitterly.

After the Spring Festival, many sellers reported that the order volume continued to hit a new low. In addition, there are large uncertainties in freight and logistics time. Old sellers lack confidence and most choose to operate conservatively. After the industry's profits have decreased, it is no longer hot in the outside world. Subsequent sellers are more cautious in entering the market. The hot money that poured into the Amazon platform in 2022 has gradually cooled down, and the seller group as a whole has returned to rationality.

This year, the industry will gradually complete its post-overheating adjustments and become more compliant and stable, which is also a good thing for long-termists.

The reason why sellers do not open new accounts blindly may be related to many factors, but for most sellers, there are two main pain points for not opening new accounts: 1. It is too difficult to promote new accounts; 2. New accounts face multiple audits at the beginning of registration.

Amazon's new account hacking

Last year, many Amazon sellers felt that it was becoming increasingly difficult to launch new products. Limited by the top sellers and the low-price spiral of new sellers, many sellers who have been in the industry for several years dared not blindly expand new accounts and new products.

One seller said frankly that he recently calculated the profit data for the whole year of last year and found that he was really supported by the old accounts for a year, and the new accounts were all losing money. Many peers have similar feelings: "Last year, the price war was serious, and the products under the new accounts had no traffic at all. The advertising fees were so expensive that they skyrocketed. It cost a lot of money to promote new products."

An industry insider said that basically all new accounts have come this way. New accounts have low weights, many new products, and high promotion costs. In addition, the market has been generally sluggish in the past two years. The first thing to do is to survive before talking about profits, so new accounts must be promoted with caution.

It is difficult to promote new products, and the cost of maintaining new accounts has increased suddenly, leading to a general consensus among some sellers: maintain old accounts first, stabilize profits, and do not blindly add new accounts to devour the already declining net profits.

In addition to the difficulty of promotion, sellers are also annoyed by the various audits faced by new accounts. The first, second and even third audits of new accounts have discouraged some sellers. Recently, another batch of new accounts have been audited, and sellers call it another wave of sweeps by Amazon.

The sellers who were affected received an email from Amazon, which roughly stated that your Amazon account has been deactivated and the listing has been deleted. We may withhold some or all funds from your account if we find that you have engaged in fraudulent, deceptive and illegal activities, or abused our systems and repeatedly violated our policies to protect our customers and selling partners.

A seller said that after receiving the email, his account was suspended. The suspended account was registered at the end of last year. He submitted relevant information according to Amazon's requirements. After waiting for a few days, the platform did not respond and the account was still blocked. This account was closed about a month after it was launched, and there were still hundreds of thousands of goods in the account.

Sellers who have encountered this kind of situation recently are not isolated cases. Another seller said that two of his accounts were closed , and another seller said that one of his accounts was closed...

According to an insider, several sellers around him have recently received such emails, and their accounts have been closed. Some sellers have more than 100 accounts that have been affected, and most of these accounts are new accounts. Although the emails received by sellers are different from regular second-instance emails, this should be a second-instance scan conducted by Amazon. If the account is registered normally, there is still a chance to appeal, but the purchased account is basically hopeless.

It is understood that new accounts are facing audit problems in large numbers, and a group of sellers just experienced this in the middle of last month. At that time, a seller woke up early in the morning and found that more than a dozen accounts were suspended. These accounts were all new accounts, some of which had no sales, while others were in the process of selling. All the suspended accounts received the same email as this time.

However, most of the accounts that were purchased at that time were subject to review. However, the new accounts that were affected this time were basically registered by the sellers using their own information.

It is worth noting that last month, Amazon reviewed accounts registered after September 2021, and most of the accounts were registered between October and December 2021. However, the time span of accounts blocked recently is even longer. Although most of them are accounts registered in recent months, there are also accounts registered in March 2021 that failed to escape the review.

Amazon's review of new accounts may continue, and sellers should pay more attention to compliance issues when registering new accounts. As the platform's review of new accounts becomes increasingly strict, it is still necessary to be cautious when using purchased accounts to do business on Amazon. In addition, the era of opening a new account and following the trend to sell hot-selling products to make money has passed. More Amazon sellers need to operate carefully and accumulate slowly.

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