Traffic and order volume both plummeted! Amazon sellers: order volume has dropped by 50%

Has your order volume dropped?

Just after the holiday, the order situation of the store has once again become a hot topic among cross-border people. It is said that the new year brings new changes, but for Amazon sellers, the situation of falling orders has not improved with the arrival of the new year. The editor learned that at the beginning of the resumption of work after the New Year, a large number of Amazon sellers’ orders fell sharply, and some fell by 50% year-on-year ...

The topic of order quantity difference has become hot again

"Compared with the same period in 2021, our Amazon store traffic has decreased by 1/4. As the number of visits has decreased, orders have also decreased by 1/4 , and the Google search index has been declining," said a seller who mainly deals in the automotive category. He originally thought that 2021 was bad enough, but judging from the order situation at the beginning of the year, 2022 seems to be worse than 2021.

It is reported that many sellers who mainly deal in auto parts have experienced a decline in both traffic and orders. With fewer orders, profits have also plummeted. According to the editor's observation, the decline in orders is not limited to individual categories. In addition to auto parts, sellers in other categories such as home furnishings, 3C, and clothing have also experienced a cold order volume:

The number of orders plummeted by 50% year-on-year, which is scary.

There are so few orders, I’m trembling with fear.

It was a week with zero orders and there was no passion for work at all.

The number of items in my category has decreased by one-third compared to the same period last year, and it’s no use lowering the price ceiling.

The number of orders is much less than the same period last year. The more I look at it, the more disappointed I feel. In addition, the weather in Shenzhen has been cold recently, and I feel cold all over!

Orders have dropped. Is the US economy getting worse?

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Orders are so bad that many US sellers are wondering if American consumers have run out of money. The editor learned that the inflation problem in the United States has intensified again.

Recently, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released CPI data for January that exceeded market expectations , up 7.5% year-on-year, the highest level since March 1982, and the ninth consecutive month that the data has reached or exceeded 5%. Under this circumstance, the prices of daily necessities have also risen significantly.

Data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in the past 12 months ending in January 2022, the prices of daily necessities have seen the largest increase since 1982, both online and offline. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said, "The growth is broad-based, with almost all component indexes increasing in the past 12 months." In the 12 months ending in January 2022, the all-item index rose 7.5%, and the all-item index excluding food and energy rose 6%.

Rising inflation has directly increased the financial pressure on American consumers, especially the economic burden on the lower-income people, which has also made them more sensitive to prices when shopping.

Involution will continue in 2022, and sellers’ profits will decline again

Although the US site is the hardest hit area for sellers to complain about, sellers on other sites such as the European site are also suffering.

For the majority of FBA sellers, FBA fees are now rising further, removal and disposal fees are also rising, and profit margins are being squeezed again. Sellers on the European site are even more faced with a dilemma: "Taxes account for 60% of profits in Europe. There is no sales if prices are raised, and no profit if prices are lowered. It's really a dilemma."

In addition to the decline in orders after the holidays, the plummeting order volume for many sellers has continued for nearly three months.

An Amazon seller said that since Christmas 2021, store traffic and order volume have dropped significantly compared with the same period last year , but he remains optimistic about the future. " I think this year is difficult, but normally it should not be worse than last year. I look forward to the subsequent order volume recovery. "

Faced with the current situation of declining order volume, not everyone sees hope.

" Products in our category that sold for $15 last year are now all priced at $9.99. Only half of the orders are left with no profit , and I am considering changing careers ," said a seller. Since January 2022, the number of orders has been declining. Coupled with factors such as European tax reforms and intensified internal competition among peers, their company has been losing money and feels that it can no longer bear it. Old sellers are complaining bitterly, and new sellers are also calling it difficult. A novice Xiaobai said that he started to get into Amazon in the second half of 2021. The products he put on the market in August have only sold one order a day since 2022, and he almost lost everything. He felt that he only realized how bad Amazon is after entering the industry.

Sellers: New products are difficult to promote, but advertising costs are sky-high

While Amazon sellers collectively reported that order volumes were declining, topics such as the difficulty in promoting new products and the increasing cost of advertising were also becoming more popular.

"Looking at the ads makes me feel disappointed. The peak season is over, but the bidding on the homepage is still not going down." The editor learned that many sellers are facing the situation where their ads are clicked but no orders are placed. The Acos is also ridiculously high. To make matters worse, orders for old products have been dropping, and new products are even more difficult to promote.

“ Last year, I made money with old accounts. Almost all new accounts were losing money , and now the old accounts are doing worse and worse, ” an Amazon seller reportedly said, noting that the profitability of new products last year was dismal.

An old Amazon seller who has been in the industry for 7 years also feels that the cross-border e-commerce industry is becoming more and more difficult. "It is difficult to promote new products. The few new products we launched have not shown much improvement. We have destroyed a lot of inventory, and a lot of inventory needs to be cleared urgently." The editor learned that this seller was still vigorously promoting new products last year, but lost a lot of money. He said frankly that although he has been working for Amazon for a long time, he now understands Amazon less and less. Not only are his company's new products difficult to promote, but even other companies have few new products. I don't know if the overall situation is downward, so for the sake of conservatism, he has "laid flat" this year.

There are still many sellers who do not seek to grow big but only seek stability in 2022. One of the sellers even said that one of the rules to survive in 2022 is not to develop new products!

Is Amazon still worth doing?

Faced with the current situation of difficulty in promoting new products and declining order volume, many Amazon sellers plan to wait and see the situation in the first half of the year, and leave if they can't bear it anymore. There are also many sellers who think that Amazon is still worth doing business, and Amazon is still the best and top cross-border e-commerce export platform, so they want to continue on this platform.

Although Amazon has mixed reputations among sellers, this does not prevent it from maintaining its leading position in cross-border e-commerce platforms. Taking the US market as an example, Amazon's performance is far ahead of others.

Recently, the search engine analysis website Searchmetrics released the 2021 US e-commerce market analysis report, which investigated and analyzed thousands of keyword search results in seven online retail industries. The survey found that in the clothing, beauty, health and sporting goods industries, Amazon is the domain name with the highest search share.

eMarketer data also shows that Amazon accounted for 41.4% of total US e-commerce sales in 2021.

Since Amazon Marketplace sales account for at least 60% of Amazon’s GMV, Amazon Marketplace’s share of total U.S. e-commerce sales has reached 25%. Although Amazon’s market share as a retailer is only 17%, in theory, Amazon would be the largest online retailer even without Amazon Marketplace.

Amazon’s closest competitor , Walmart, is less than half its size. It would take Walmart and the next five retailers combined to reach Amazon’s size.

What is certain is that Amazon is still a platform worthy of investment for the majority of cross-border sellers, but as competition becomes increasingly fierce, the era when cross-border sellers can easily make quick money is gone forever.

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