Amazon's new regulations will be implemented, and sellers on five sites will face a return frenzy!

Amazon warehouse encountered a bomb threat and all personnel were evacuated urgently; Amazon released a new return policy, and self-delivery sellers in five locations including the UK, Germany, and France will be forced to refund by Amazon, and buyers do not need to return the goods; sellers' shopping cart win rate dropped sharply ... For sellers, the number of orders this peak season has not seen a significant increase, but there are many troubles.

Amazon warehouse receives bomb threat

Foreign media reported that on Monday morning local time in the United States, an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey received a telephone bomb threat and personnel were evacuated urgently.

Local police said they received a 911 call around 6:45 a.m. that mentioned the Amazon warehouse on East Pearl Street in Burlington.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to local media that police responded to the location and that all day shift workers had been evacuated and sent home with pay.

The spokesman added that by late Monday afternoon, police had cleared the scene and deemed it safe to re-enter, and the night shift resumed work from 6pm .

As of September, Amazon owned and operated 19 fulfillment centers, 20 delivery stations and 22 Whole Foods Market stores in the state .

This is not the first time Amazon has been threatened with a bomb. Its headquarters in Seattle, the United States, and its headquarters in Madrid, Spain, as well as its data centers, have all been threatened with bombs. Last September, a suspected bomb package was found at Amazon's large distribution center in Dunfermline, the UK.

While the sellers here haven't recovered from the shock of "the warehouse has been threatened with a bomb, will the warehousing and listing of my goods be affected?", other sellers are about to face a wave of returns.

New rules for self-delivery returns at five European sites will be implemented on October 5

Recently, many European sellers said they received an email from Amazon regarding a change in return requirements. Subsequently, Amazon Europe released an announcement regarding a change in customer return requirements for self-delivered orders from international sellers.

The announcement shows that from October 5, overseas sellers selling on the UK site will either provide a UK return address or provide a domestic return option for all products and orders below £20 (including VAT and shipping) . In this case, Amazon will generate a prepaid return label that buyers can use to return the product.

What happens if the seller does not have a local return address?

The announcement clearly states that if the seller does not provide Amazon with a default return address for goods and orders under £20 in the UK, Amazon will automatically issue a non-return refund to the buyer on behalf of the seller. If the return request falls within the scope of Amazon's return policy, the buyer does not need to return the goods.

In short, if the seller does not have a local return address, then the buyer of the above-mentioned goods can request a refund but does not need to return the goods, which is also called "freeloading".

It can be predicted that after the implementation of this policy, the sellers' return rate will increase significantly.

"When I saw this policy, I felt like 'it's over'. The crazy returns are about to begin!" said a seller.

It is worth noting that this new policy applies not only to the UK, but also to Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The only difference is that these sites apply to orders below 25 euros .

Amazon said the change will help simplify and standardize the returns process for customers and sellers for low-cost items, where international labels are often more expensive than the price of the item itself. If sellers don't have a local default return address, Amazon suggests that international returns providers on the Solution Provider Network can help.

As soon as this policy came out, it was unsurprisingly met with collective complaints from sellers:

“——It would be terrible if the liar knew this news.

——Every move Amazon makes is designed to allow buyers to get products for free.

——After seeing this policy, I think it’s time to raise the price of my products.

- This could have a bigger impact than Brexit on many sellers who decide to sell into Europe.”

More radical sellers said they would stop selling products to the above-mentioned countries.

Sellers are upset about Amazon 's practice, which can be described as "robbery." However, before the implementation of this new policy, sellers were troubled by another thing - a sudden drop in the shopping cart win rate.

The shopping cart win rate plummeted. Is there a bug in Amazon?

The importance of Amazon's shopping cart ( buybox) is self-evident. 70%-80% of sales on Amazon are generated through the shopping cart. For sellers, having a shopping cart means that the product will have a higher exposure and conversion rate.

But recently, sellers have been reporting that the shopping cart win rate has suddenly dropped a lot:

“——Today I suddenly found that the shopping cart has dropped a lot, from 100% directly to more than 60 .

——My weight also dropped to the 50s and I was panicking .

——The shopping cart has been very abnormal these days, especially the European site .

——It has been reduced for several days. The order volume was not affected before, but today the order volume is not good. I am panicking!

——It turns out I’m not the only one like this. Now that everyone has surrendered, I can rest assured and go to bed.”

Not only that, some sellers also said that the backend purchase button win rate data cannot be displayed, and only by clicking in can the specific data be seen.

The seller was confused by the sudden situation. Some people speculated that it might be caused by Amazon's second-hand copycat sales or the impact of price adjustments.

We know that the main factors affecting the shopping cart winning rate include: 1. Delivery method. Amazon's own sellers > FBA > local delivery > China delivery. 2. Price. 3. Customer feedback score. 4. Shipping time. On-time delivery is very important for winning the shopping cart. 5. Store performance. Including order defect rate, evaluation score, shipping history, seller feedback time. 6. Inventory and sales quantity. Compared with an inventory quantity of 1, a quantity of 20 is naturally more advantageous. 7. The product is copied.

However, many sellers said that they were not copied by others, their prices did not fluctuate, their inventory was sufficient, and their store performance was very good.

Only by finding the cause can we prescribe the right remedy. Amidst all the speculation, some people said that Amazon's system has been unstable recently, so the sudden drop in the shopping cart winning rate is likely due to a system bug. Sure enough, a seller later said that he consulted the customer service, and the answer given by the customer service was that it was a system problem and that it could be restored in 1 to 2 days.

As we all know, the majority of cross-border sellers' annual revenue is realized in the Q4 peak season. Once a mistake is made, the entire year's revenue will be affected. Now is the peak sales season, so sellers must be cautious, pay attention to changes in policies, logistics, etc., and formulate countermeasures in a timely manner.

Refund without return

Bomb Threats

Decreased shopping cart win rate