Shipping prices in Europe and the United States have increased across the board! Amazon sellers' orders have dropped by 2/3

Since April, many Amazon sellers have noticed a significant decline in orders, with some sellers even seeing a drop of 2/3. In recent days, there have been more feedback about poor traffic.

Rising freight rates are also eroding sellers’ profits. A new round of increases in sea freight prices has occurred, and high-priced warehouses are called “diamond warehouses.” A practitioner said: “The current freight rates at key ports in Europe and the West Coast of the United States are twice the highest prices I have seen in the past 20 years.” Sellers are facing a situation of high shipping prices.

Shipping costs on China-U.S. routes surge

This week, container freight rates from Asia to Europe and the United States rose sharply. Among them, the FBX index from Asia to the West Coast of the United States rose 4% last week to $5,375/FEU, up 251% from the same period last year; the FBX index to the East Coast of the United States rose 3% to $6,002/FEU, up 108% from the same period last year. The rise in freight rates soon affected shipping sellers.

As freight rates on the two major international container routes from Shanghai to Los Angeles and Shanghai to Rotterdam remain high, some merchants have begun to sign one-year freight contracts and include the freight rates in their costs.

(Screenshot from Hong Hao )

According to practitioners, Shanghai freight rates have skyrocketed except for Southeast Asia. Currently, the freight rates of European ports and US West Coast ports are almost twice the highest they have seen in their 20 years of work. Among them, the freight rate to Miami is about 13,400 USD, which is now called "diamond warehouse".

Not only has the price of ocean freight increased, but the railway is also following suit. One merchant said that the cost of railway transportation to Rotterdam is also very high, having risen to US$11,000, three times the cost before the epidemic, and the warehouse space is very tight.

Taking the US route as an example, the air freight price remains high, and now the sea freight price is not friendly either, and sellers are complaining:

"Once the shipping fee increases by tens of thousands, it's all in vain"

"Another round of price hikes for ocean freight. If prices continue to rise, Matsun will hardly be able to afford it."

"Sea freight has increased by 0.5, and express delivery will be overwhelmed before the holiday, so prices will continue to rise."

The current transportation situation is embarrassing. A seller is helpless: the shipping cost has skyrocketed, the space is tight and there is no guarantee of a cabinet, and it is not even before the May Day holiday. The US line will increase prices again next month, and the cabinet prices will also increase sharply. Combined with the situation of crazy shortage of space during every small holiday, everyone should cherish this month.

What is the reason for the soaring ocean freight prices? A logistics expert summarized it as follows:

- This year's shipping schedule is unstable, shipping capacity is insufficient, and ships cannot return to Asia in time;

-Many containers are either on ships or on the sea, either at dock yards or in warehouses waiting for workers to unload them, and many are still stuck in inland areas of the United States and cannot be released.

-Dozens of ships are waiting to unload cargo at major ports in the United States and Canada. The port capacity is insufficient, so it takes 8-12 days to unload cargo. It is even worse to load cargo by train, which takes 3-5 weeks. The most serious problem is the extreme shortage of brackets.

-Nowadays, many shipowners only allow 3 days of free container use. After placing the SO and issuing the bill, you must pick up the container within 12 hours, otherwise the SO will become invalid.

In this case, the only way to ship the goods is probably through the shipowner's diamond warehouse.

Some industry insiders are well aware of the situation: the high overseas demand and the shortage of export containers have resulted in a decrease in export volume and a sharp increase in transportation costs. The online market will also react in the future - the supply is unbalanced and the overall price will also rise. However, this state may not last too long. Now all parties are taking intensive measures to increase the number of export containers. When this wave of transition is over and the shipping costs begin to decline, exporters will inevitably flock to it, which will eventually be reflected in the market, and there will be endless price wars again.

Logistics increased , materials increased , everything increased ...only orders decreased.

Traffic is extremely poor, and sellers' orders have dropped by 2/3

Recently, many sellers have reported poor traffic and a sharp decline in orders.

One seller said that sales have been unusually low in the past two days, both on the US and German sites. Another seller complained: "Orders on the entire European site have plummeted visibly."

As orders declined, many sellers complained that traffic has been very poor recently, and they don’t know why traffic continues to decline. One seller was helpless: “I no longer have the desire to check the backend, traffic is stagnant!”

In fact, the decline in both traffic and orders had already occurred at the beginning of this month. In April, many sellers who returned to work after the Qingming Festival asked their peers how their orders were doing recently. The results were all "cold".

At that time, one seller said that the orders were not cut in half, but cut in half. Another seller said frankly that both traffic and orders have declined, and today's orders have decreased by 2/3. Looking at the market, everyone is the same.

The so-called "everyone" really has many colleagues who have similar experiences:

“——Sales have continued to decline sharply since April and cannot be compared with last month;

——Orders are directly cut off;

——The sales volume is unbearable to look at;

——Today 's order volume is very poor

——It’s so scary. I woke up in the morning and saw an order.

——Orders have been declining for a week;

——It ’s been like this for the past few days, but today is the worst . ”

In April, even though many sellers reported a decline in orders, some sellers still saw an increase in orders.

Recently, a seller sent me good news : orders have been pouring in at dawn, indicating another new high. The editor found that this seller has been sharing the good news of rising orders for the past two months. Even when everyone's orders collectively plunged on weekends, his orders were still rising. The seller has experienced price increases and out-of-stocks many times, but several products have performed well. This may be related to the categories sold.

Recently, orders for several categories of outdoor sports and clothing have shown an upward trend.

Some sellers who are short of orders and traffic have tried to make up for it by running ads, but the effect of ads is very poor . ACOS has soared but orders have not increased. Some sellers have run ads like crazy, but the traffic decline cannot be reversed.

Some sellers have had enough of Amazon advertising. Since there are no orders anyway, they simply adjust the daily advertising expenses from 30 to 20, but their brother-in-law suggests that the daily budget is 80. The seller questions: Will there be orders if we spend so much on advertising?

Not only that, the seller Ms. Li also revealed to the editor her troubles with Amazon advertising.

Advertising costs exceeded 60 times, sellers questioned Amazon system bug

Ms. Li said that when setting up the Amazon ad, she set a coupon and budgeted $100, but the actual cost of the Amazon backend was nearly $6,400. Currently, the money has also been deducted by the platform.

The seller opened more than 20 cases to various Amazon teams, trying to ask the platform to refund the overpaid portion, but to no avail.

In the email reply given by Amazon, it was mentioned that regarding the issue of coupon spending exceeding the budget, when the budget utilization rate reaches 80%, we will take your coupon offline and then allocate the remaining 20% ​​to deal with the redemption of buyers who have already received the coupon.

To give buyers the best coupon experience, we allow them approximately 30 minutes to redeem after coupon discovery is disabled. If 20% of your budget is less than the amount buyers redeem during this 30-minute period, you may see overspend. For budgets under $10,000, overspend may be as much as 15% (or more) of your budget.

Combining the platform's response, Ms. Li said that the platform refused to refund the extra $6,000 and said it was normal. She disagreed with this statement. Previously, similar advertising expenses were basically not overspent, or the overspending range did not exceed 15%. This time it exceeded 60 times. She thought it might be caused by a bug in the Amazon system.

logistics