Amazon is going to charge again, and sellers’ operating costs are soaring again!

Another day of mixed joys and sorrows!

As Amazon's policies are updated from time to time, many of Amazon's services that were originally very cheap have become expensive, and some things that were originally free have gradually become "paid to use". The latest news shows that Amazon has turned a free service into a paid item, which has caused a large number of sellers to say that their operating costs are going to soar again.

In recent years, in addition to continuously increasing the service fee standards for sellers, Amazon has also been increasingly strict in cracking down on sellers' violations. This year's unprecedented "account blocking wave" is an example. Many sellers have lost all their money due to the increased pressure of sudden account blocking. However, what makes people happy is that these sellers whose accounts have been blocked seem to be saved. The Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce today invited Shenzhen sellers to hold a symposium to formulate relevant measures to help sellers overcome difficulties.

With the new charging policy, Amazon’s operating costs will increase again!

It’s a quiet night, when people are sleeping soundly, but many Amazon sellers are unable to sleep because of a fee notice from the Amazon platform ...

From Amazon's latest charging notice, the editor learned:

Starting October 12, 2021, Amazon Vine will charge a fee of $200 for each newly registered product to ensure the long-term sustainability of the program. Specifically, starting October 12, Amazon will charge a fee for each registered product 7 days after the first Vine review of the product is published. The fee is non-refundable.

Although Amazon has stated that it will charge a fee for each product starting October 12, sellers will not be charged fees in the following cases:

If a product has no reviews, or if the first Vine review is posted more than 90 days after the platform made the seller's product available to Vine Voices, the platform will not charge a fee.

The editor also learned that products currently included in the program by sellers will not be affected by this change, and the fee will only apply to products added to the program after October 12, 2021.

According to Amazon, Amazon Vine invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post their opinions on new and pre-released products to help other customers make informed purchasing decisions. Thousands of companies participating in Amazon Vine have found it valuable, and on average, reviews from Vine Voices have been shown to help increase sales by 19.6%.

After Amazon’s latest charging policy was released, it is no surprise that Amazon sellers began a heated discussion.

Some people think that Amazon is always thinking about cutting sellers' leeks ↓↓↓

A: Amazon charges $200 for one product. They are sucking blood unscrupulously again!

B: It seems that the new official has done more than just three things since taking office, the man-eating Amazon!

C: Insurance, abandonment, warehousing, excess warehousing, advertising management fees... There are more and more charging items, and almost all costs have to be borne by the sellers. The sellers are suffering.

D: Originally, you could make money from selling on Amazon, but as Amazon charges more and more fees, Amazon sellers gradually became philanthropists who selflessly contribute to the platform .

Some people think that Vine itself is not very useful, so if it is charged, it will be useless ↓↓↓

A: There are too many uncertainties in Vine. If a new product gets a one-star bad review, the product link may be invalid. Now Amazon charges a fee, so I won’t use it in the future.

B: After using Vine, there is no guarantee that 100% of the reviews will be left, and there is no guarantee that all the reviews will be positive. If I get a bad review in the future, I will have to pay $200 for it. I am really unhappy just thinking about it.

C: It’s not impossible to charge a fee, but charging $200 is too outrageous. The price has successfully discouraged users!

Summarizing the sellers' feedback, we can find that many sellers believe that as green leeks, they have to pay protection fees to Amazon again. However, people have to bow their heads under the eaves. As Amazon's charging items increase, the majority of Amazon sellers still need to do a good job of refined operations and calculate each cost in detail. Don't work hard and end up losing money instead of making money.

Shenzhen will hold a symposium to investigate Amazon's "store closure" incident

Since May, we have heard a lot about Amazon's store closures, especially Shenzhen sellers, who have been hit hard and suffered heavy losses. Recently, there have been many news reports about the sequelae of the store closures, such as jumping off buildings and committing suicide. Sellers are saying that their mentality is about to collapse. Who can save cross-border sellers?

Fortunately, the relevant government departments in Shenzhen seemed to have heard the sellers' cries for help. Yesterday, a picture of a document was widely circulated in the cross-border circle.

The picture shows that according to the instructions of the leaders of Guangdong Province, a research team from the Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province will go to Shenzhen to investigate the details of how cross-border e-commerce companies have been affected by the recent Amazon "store closure" incident, and to formulate relevant solutions through research, so as to provide a reference for the leaders of Guangdong Province to make decisions and help the affected cross-border e-commerce companies to get out of difficulties and achieve sustained, healthy and rapid development.

To this end, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce assisted the Guangdong Provincial Department of Commerce Research Group to organize a symposium at 10:00 on August 13 (today) in the multi-function hall on the 6th floor of the Economic and Trade Center Building in Futian District. Invited companies sent familiar personnel to attend the meeting, with no more than 2 people from each company .

The research outline shows that this symposium mainly discussed the following four issues:

1. The actual situation of the impact of Amazon's "store closure" on the company , including but not limited to the number of closed stores, the product brands involved, the amount frozen by the Amazon platform, the number of products and the amount, the transaction amount affected by the "store closure", the number of layoffs, etc.

2. What difficulties has Amazon's "store closure" caused to the normal production and operation of enterprises? For example, difficulties in capital turnover, etc.

3. What "self-help" measures have companies taken so far ? Such as legal proceedings, platform complaints, and clearing overseas inventory.

4. What specific help do you need from government departments?

The announcement came as a timely relief to the struggling Shenzhen sellers, and also received a wave of praise from cross-border sellers.

One seller said that this is why if you want to start a business, you have to come to Guangdong and Shenzhen. When you are rich, people will look down on you , but when you are in trouble, people will support and research you immediately.

Other voices such as "Shenzhen is great", "I feel a lot of goodness", "envy", "jealous" and so on continued.

On July 22, in response to the incident of Amazon sellers being blocked, Li Xingqian, Director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, responded at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on how to deal with Amazon's blocking of sellers.

Now, the Shenzhen Commerce Bureau has organized another symposium to investigate the details of the impact on sellers and develop relevant solutions, proving that government departments are paying more attention to Amazon's ban on Chinese sellers' stores.

The reason behind the increasing government attention is that Amazon is banning accounts on a larger scale. Now, Amazon has banned accounts from the top sellers to the second tier.

A seller said recently that he learned that a brand of his Amazon counterpart, which had thousands of orders a day, had recently gone out of business. Another seller said that he had also suffered a heavy blow because his Amazon account was blocked recently and his team was disbanded.

I hope this symposium can bring good news to the sellers whose accounts have been blocked!