It has been on the list of new products in a few days? Be careful of the "pig-killing scheme" of hot products

In the past two days, many sellers have noticed a human-shaped barbecue grill with a high unit price, high sales volume, and fast ranking increase, which seems to be a potential product. But while the sellers were still discussing it, the product suddenly became unsaleable. At the same time, a seller revealed a popular "pig-killing scheme" in the industry, which was surprising and product developers need to avoid pitfalls.

In just a few days, it rushed to the list of new products in major categories, and the human-shaped barbecue grill became popular.

During the product selection process this week, a human-shaped barbecue grill caught the attention of sellers. The product is priced at nearly $69 and has high sales. In just a few days, it rose to the 11th place in the new product list of the home kitchen category of Meiya, and the first place in the new product list of the barbecue skewer category, but there were no comments. Judging from the data performance, this seems to be a potential hit.

Many sellers have noticed this product:

"I saw this when I was researching products today. Sales are pretty high."

"This was posted outside the site, and I saw it two days ago."

“Is this some kind of black technology? He’s already ranked second in the minor category after only two days, and there’s Chinese in the bullet points.”

However, the product has a special shape and is suspected of skirting the law. Some sellers may be reported for questioning. On Thursday afternoon, the product page suddenly showed "not for sale".

The seller guessed that the purchase price of this product might be less than 10 yuan. After searching, the editor found that several merchants on a domestic supply platform were selling this product, with prices ranging from more than 10 to more than 20 yuan, and the minimum purchase quantity was 50 pieces.

Why is this product selling so well? Sellers who have done their homework pointed out that the product was promoted outside the site, so the sales were pushed up. But the problem is that this seems to be a fake hit.

A seller revealed: It is definitely a pig-killing scam. My friend’s supplier is vigorously promoting this product. The drinking and ring-tossing games that have emerged in recent times are all scams. There are many such pig-killing scams in the courtyard category.

What's going on?

A seller on Zhiwubuyan revealed the true face of a pig-killing scam: manufacturers use cannon fodder accounts to send empty orders or not ship goods, and then offer a 10% or 20% discount to boost sales. There are always many foreigners who are greedy for bargains and place orders, and then sales are very high in a short period of time, often reaching the top few in a small category, and then they wait for a large number of leeks to place orders. The manufacturer only spends 2,000 to 3,000 yuan on cannon fodder accounts and 1,000 to 2,000 yuan on off-site promotion, but may receive tens of thousands of orders.

With fast rankings, no reviews, and dozens of orders a day, these "hot items" look very tempting. If the sellers are not cautious enough, they may become leeks to be harvested. "Some suppliers often use external promotion to create signs of hot items. This way they earn the cost of selling goods, and once you put them on the shelves, they are all inventory." said a seller.

The sellers concluded that in addition to the human-shaped barbecue grill, iron tequila decorations, drinking ring toss toys, hummingbird feeding tubes, 3-1 silicone scraper tools, wooden pallets, star garden kettle lights, etc. are all products of this type that should be avoided.

The problem of popular pig-killing scams has left sellers with lingering fears, and recently foreign media have reported a large number of cases of Chinese sellers violating regulations and placing fake orders, and Amazon has also begun to settle accounts.

Amazon is settling accounts with sellers who made fake orders last year and received suspension warnings

Analysts estimate that Chinese sellers accounted for 75% of new sellers on Amazon in January, up from 47% a year earlier, according to Marketplace Pulse .

Chinese sellers are not only flocking to Amazon, but also to other platforms such as eBay, Wish, Shopee and AliExpress. This year, the growth rate of cross-border sellers has been obvious, and there are many myths about cross-border e-commerce making people rich in Shenzhen.

However, in the past few days, several top domestic sellers’ products were suddenly unavailable on Amazon, bringing their hopes of getting rich quickly through cross-border e-commerce to an abrupt end. Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of Marketplace Pulse, said at least 11 accounts of major Chinese sellers had been suspended, and some of the accounts belonged to the same parent company.

When this news came out, many Chinese sellers were confused, and everyone exchanged views and coping strategies on various channels. This is not the first time Amazon has closed accounts due to fake reviews and other violations, but the scale of this wave is unprecedented.

A large number of American media have reported on the issue of Chinese sellers’ accounts being blocked. Some media pointed out that with the fierce competition among Chinese sellers, black hat strategies have become a necessary condition for many people to survive on Amazon, and a common method used by sellers is to manipulate reviews.

These methods have been around for years. Regarding Amazon's raid, some sellers agree that the platform is settling scores and catching some illegal operations of fake orders.

Recently, many sellers have stopped violating regulations. However, sellers who have violated regulations before are still worried that Amazon will punish them later. At this critical juncture, a group of sellers who violated regulations and made fake orders last year suddenly received warnings of account suspension.

One seller said that he had not made any fake orders this year, but received a warning from Amazon that his account was blocked. Currently, the seller has received a call confirming that the reason for the warning was that he made fake orders last year.

Another seller also reported that he had also faked orders last year and now received a warning letter. He had faked several orders this year and his account was suspended once at the end of March.

Some sellers who have been warned have had their accounts suspended. This seller said that he also faked orders last year, and this year he did not fake any orders but still received a suspension warning. After he appealed, his account was suspended a day later. I wish other sellers who have received warning letters good luck.

It is worrying that many sellers have been warned. An industry insider revealed that Amazon’s risk control has been strict recently, and sellers who have received warnings should wait for follow-up review emails or phone calls.

In fact, Amazon is accustomed to settling accounts after the event. As long as an account has placed fake orders on the market, Amazon's system may detect it and the account may be implicated. It is just a question of whether the platform is willing to spend time, manpower and financial resources to catch it.

At the center of the storm, sellers are afraid of making mistakes. Some evaluation service providers said that their business has been seriously affected recently.

Some sellers reported an increase in order cancellation rates

The issue of Chinese sellers manipulating reviews reported by the US media has also caused concerns among sellers. They are worried that with the recent increase in reports, US buyers will treat Chinese sellers differently.

At the same time, this year a large number of new and old accounts were required to verify their addresses. After verification, the seller’s Chinese address was directly displayed on the background. Some sellers found that the recent order cancellation rate was high, so they linked the two together.

Sellers speculated that the negative news about Chinese sellers reported by foreign media would affect buyers' choices. However, other sellers believed that the cancellation rate has indeed increased recently, but it may be related to the slow delivery time of Amazon caused by the epidemic. Of course, other reasons can only be found from within.

In fact, industry sellers generally have this perception: Although some Americans have always used Chinese products, they have always disliked Chinese products, so the recent Chinese address verification will have some adverse effects. Sellers are also worried that videos will appear on American social media in the future to check whether the seller is Chinese when purchasing a product.

However, sellers analyzed that during the shopping process, few buyers would click a few more times to check the merchant's address, so there is no need to worry too much about this at present.