Emergency! Blizzard blocks roads, 75 Amazon FBA warehouses closed

This week, the United States was hit by extremely cold weather caused by a snowstorm. More than 3 million households and businesses in various states across the country were cut off from water, electricity and heating, with Texas being the hardest hit. The snowstorm blocked roads, and Amazon urgently issued a notice that the winter storm affected order fulfillment. More than 70 FBA warehouses have been closed, and it is expected that receiving goods will not resume until the end of February, which makes sellers who are anxious to restock feel uneasy.

Snowstorm blocks roads, 75 Amazon FBA warehouses closed

According to CNN, winter storms have hit many states in the United States in recent days, killing at least 33 people, and millions of homes and businesses have suffered continuous power outages. Water and fuel supplies have also been affected. Homes in some parts of Texas have been without power for more than 30 hours in a row, and daily life has been severely affected.

At present, the power outage problem has been alleviated, but the problems caused by the storm are still ongoing. Supermarket shelves in many places in Texas have been emptied, and some people have shifted their shopping needs to online. An Amazon seller said that "sales have improved after heavy snow." However, the storm was raging, the highways were frozen, and transportation problems occurred, which greatly affected order delivery and sellers' replenishment.

An Amazon spokesperson said that Amazon was forced to temporarily close some facilities in eight states including Texas due to severe weather . According to the latest feedback from logistics companies, many FBA warehouses have been closed due to road closures caused by heavy snow in the United States, and it is expected that receiving goods will not resume until the end of February. More than 70 warehouses are involved. The following is a list of some closed warehouses.

Currently, the closed warehouses include AUS5, DAU1, DAU2, DAU5, DAU7, DDA1, DDA2, DDA3, DDA8, DDA9, DDF1, DDX6, DDX7, DFW6, DFW7, DHO1, DHO4, DHO5, DHO7, DHX1, DHX3, DHX5, DPA7, DSX1, DSX3, FTW3, FTW4, HDA1, HHO2, HOK1, HOU2, HOU3, HOU7, HSX2, KAUS, KSKF, SAT1, SAT2, VUH5, BNA2, BNA3, BNA5, BNA9, DKY2, DLR2, DNA1, DTN4, DTN8, HAU1, HBN1, HLI1, HLO1, MEM1, MEM2, MEM3, MEM4, MEM5, MEM6, ABE2, ABE3, ABE4, ABE5, BWI1, DJE6, MDT2, PHL6, PHL7, RDG1, RIC1, RIC2, TEN1, VUCT, VUGU, VUPJ, VUPO.

In addition, some other Amazon warehouses have also reduced their unloading volume, and most scheduled deliveries have been postponed for 1-3 weeks. After the Spring Festival holiday, many sellers have run out of stock. When it comes to emergency replenishment, sellers need to avoid these temporarily closed warehouses.

In addition, Amazon also notified the order delivery status during the snowstorm.

Amazon issues winter storm order fulfillment notice

In today's announcement, Amazon said in response to the situation in Texas and other areas affected by the severe winter storm that if the storm and any resulting seller-fulfilled order issues affect your performance metrics, please briefly describe how your business has been affected when you respond to any relevant performance notifications in Seller Central.

Due to severe weather and its impact on seller operations, Amazon will mitigate the impact on your account health. Sellers can take the following actions to protect your business:

If you anticipate not being able to meet shipping service levels, consider temporarily setting seller-filled listings to inactive;

- If you expect that you will not be able to meet the shipping service level, it is recommended that you temporarily turn off the Prime badge on the product to avoid affecting the customer experience. When the weather improves and you are able to ship on time, you can turn on the Prime badge;

-Connect with buyers via Buyer-Seller Messaging Service about the status of their orders in order to ship seller-fulfilled orders to areas that may be impacted by the winter storm.

No action is required for FBA products. Amazon will process messages for all FBA orders impacted by the storm. If you have shipments en route to fulfillment centers in the affected areas, you should expect delays and potential carrier rescheduling notices.

There are other reasons for cargo delays, such as containers falling into the water.

A ship loaded with Chinese goods had an accident and a large number of containers fell into the water

The container falling into the water incident happened again. What you fear will come true!

Recently, a ship sailing from China to the Port of Los Angeles in the United States encountered severe weather, causing a large number of containers to fall into the water and be damaged! The ship is owned by Maersk and is named "MAERSK EINDHOVEN" .

It is reported that the ship was on its way from Xiamen, China to Los Angeles , the United States, when the incident happened . It was originally scheduled to arrive at the Port of Los Angeles on March 1, but now the arrival date is nowhere in sight.

Related reports mentioned that many of the containers are currently drifting in the Eastern Kuril Islands in the North Pacific Ocean off Japan, and the cargo in the containers will definitely be affected. In addition to the containers floating on the sea, some containers have simply disappeared, and it is estimated that the loss of cargo is inevitable!

A Maersk spokesperson has confirmed that containers fell into the water on the "MAERSK EINDHOVEN", but the specific number of containers that fell into the water has not yet been announced.

Maersk said in a statement: "We are awaiting further updates from the vessel regarding containers that may have been lost or damaged and will release details as soon as they are available. We consider this a serious situation and will conduct a swift and thorough investigation into the incident. For affected customers, a customer communication plan and claims process have been urgently developed. "

Many of the containers involved in the accident contained goods from Chinese shippers. Data showed that the accident ship "MAERSK EINDHOVEN" had previously called at ports such as Hong Kong, Shenzhen Yantian, and Xiamen, and the ship was fully loaded with goods shipped from China to the United States before the Spring Festival.

Before the Spring Festival, domestic cross-border sellers panicked and prepared large quantities of goods. Due to the large volume of shipments, Shenzhen Yantian Port was seriously congested. Many cross-border sellers' goods are shipped to the Port of Los Angeles in the western United States. Now the sellers who shipped before the Spring Festival probably have trouble sleeping. Relevant sellers can contact logistics companies to check whether their goods are on the ship that had the accident.

Sellers who have recently shipped goods are really worried! On January 16, the Maersk "MAERSK ESSEN" had a container fall into the water and damage. At that time, about 750 containers were damaged. The accident ship also encountered bad weather on the way from Xiamen to Los Angeles.

When a ship has an accident, the owner of the container will suffer losses if it is lost or falls into the water, and the undamaged containers will also face major delays, which is a headache for the sellers! However, Amazon released a good news today, opening a feature for sellers to use for free.

Amazon opens product image A/B testing for free

Amazon has announced that it will release the A/B testing feature for product images . For the first time, sellers can test alternative versions of the main product images and see which images can bring higher conversion rates.

Thankfully, you can use A/B testing for free to optimize your product images to boost customer confidence and drive purchasing decisions.

With Testing, sellers can run A/B tests on three areas of the detail page : A+ Content, product title, and image. Experiments are easy to start and the results are easy to understand, so sellers can be confident that they made the right choice for their products. In less than five minutes, sellers can create an image experiment with weekly shared results.

A seller was pleasantly surprised to discover this feature and shared that Amazon’s main image can be A/B tested. The path is Brands>>Manage Experiments>>Create a New Experiments>> Main image. Currently, A+, title and main image A/B testing can be done in the Manage Experiments section. It is also said that this feature of Amazon is somewhat similar to Taobao’s product and image testing.

Some sellers also said that this function is great, but this test is somewhat different from Taobao. If the main picture on Amazon does not violate the rules, it is difficult to come up with new ideas, and there is not much room for the white background picture.

However, some sellers said that Amazon would exclude some sellers from using this feature. For example, the seller’s products must meet the minimum traffic requirements, and some products may not even meet this threshold.

It is used to test new features such as images and titles that are conducive to conversions. It is free and worth a look for Amazon sellers who have the conditions.

United States, Logistics, FBA