Profits under pressure! Amazon may have major adjustments...

New year, new changes!

As the shopping promotions such as Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, and Christmas come to an end, the orders of Amazon sellers have begun to decline, and profits are under pressure. It is worth noting that Amazon is about to launch a new policy at the beginning of the new year, which will have a negative impact on sellers' profits to varying degrees!

Sellers are saying: Amazon Deals will capture the discounted price of Coupons

Recently, such a piece of news has been spreading wildly in the cross-border circle ↓↓↓

Received a notice from the Amazon manager : After 1.16, Deal will capture the discounted price of Coupon , which means that the flash sale cannot be higher than the discounted price of T30 Coupon; all sites will implement it .

Price changes after the policy change : The discounted price of coupons within 30 days before January 16, 2025 will affect the lowest price, that is, the flash sale price will be affected, but the VRP price will not be affected for the time being; large coups will directly affect the flash sale price.

At present, some sellers are skeptical about this news, but many sellers have stated that their account managers have confirmed that it is true and started to capture the lowest coupon price on January 16.

If this is true, then a large number of sellers will face more intense low-price competition in 2025.

It is understood that in the process of promoting new products, many sellers often use high prices + large coupons to quickly increase product sales. The combination of high prices and large coupons is essentially a discount promotion, which generally does not change the price of the shopping cart. If the new regulations take effect and coupons are included in the 30-day lowest price , then the coupon will directly affect the price of subsequent flash sales; sellers who are keen on selling products through LD and BD will also be greatly affected.

Many industry insiders believe that the purpose of Amazon's adjustment of its promotional policy is to prevent false promotions and further lower the prices of sellers' products, thereby retaining more consumers, especially those who attach great importance to cost-effectiveness.

But for the majority of Amazon sellers, this news is undoubtedly negative. If the seller sets a high coupon , the product price will have to be further reduced when the seller reports a flash sale. Product price and profit are inseparable. Lower prices mean smaller profit margins, and sellers will get less and less money.

"An ideal situation is that everyone would unanimously raise product prices and earn a reasonable profit! Unfortunately, this situation will basically not be realized." Amazon seller Xiao Zhang said that it is foreseeable that many sellers will continue to lose money by selling products at low prices in flash sales to boost product rankings. The competition between sellers will become more intense, and the platform will definitely be the ultimate beneficiary.

Amazon Prime exclusive discounts revamped ! Sellers are complaining

In terms of discounts, Amazon has earlier updated a new policy: Prime members’ exclusive discounts have been migrated to the price discount tool .

Amazon said that in order to simplify the experience of sellers creating all discounts, the creation of Prime member-exclusive discounts will be migrated to the price discount tool. This will allow sellers to create Prime member-exclusive discounts and price discounts in the same tool . From December 18, 2024, sellers must use the price discount tool to create Prime member-exclusive discounts. After December 31, 2024, Prime member-exclusive discounts can no longer be created in the Prime member-exclusive discount tool.

On January 7, 2025, the platform will remove the Prime member-exclusive discount tool from the seller platform.

" Can the platform keep the old Prime exclusive discount tool? It was indeed a useful tool. After the function and page were updated , it became ugly and difficult to use ! So speechless ... " Many sellers complained. Amazon seller Xiao Li detailed that the new window was delayed too long in time and took 6 hours to start, while the Prime exclusive discount would start within 1-2 hours , which means that he was eligible to provide Prime exclusive discounts to Prime buyers, but was not eligible to enjoy price discounts to run Prime exclusive discounts ...

In addition, after the revision of Amazon Prime's exclusive discounts, sellers also found that using the price discount tool to create Prime member exclusive prices would result in errors, and the price needed to be lowered , basically 5% lower than the exclusive discount price set previously .

Amazon customer service said that the discount must meet the following requirements:

At least 5% off the lowest price the buyer paid in the past 30 days;
The lowest price at which buyers purchased in the past 30 days;
At least 5% discount from the current price ;
If the product's reference price is verified, it is at least 5% off the reference price. If the product's reference price is not verified, the system will not display the strikethrough price or savings to the buyer.

The above changes have brought challenges to Amazon sellers’ operations.

The next e-commerce battleground will be price, not convenience

From a series of changes in Amazon in recent times, we can see that the platform is paying more and more attention to low-priced goods.

In October 2024 , Amazon announced that the Rufus AI shopping assistant launched a price history query function, allowing some consumers to view the historical lowest prices of products. Rufus even displayed a line chart showing the prices of products in the past month. In addition, consumers will also receive price change notifications for items in their shopping carts. If there is any change in the price of the product, even if it is only 1 cent, consumers will be informed. If Amazon believes that the price of the product on the platform is not competitive compared to other platforms, it may hide the "Buy" button for this product and require consumers to click on other products to complete the purchase.

Amazon system pushes cheaper white-label products! Research institutions have found that Amazon is pushing more unbranded and cheaper white-label products to consumers. Looking at unbranded search results related to holidays also shows that the seller's product price has dropped by 11% compared with the same period in 2023.

Amazon monitors sellers’ pricing . Previously, Amazon said it would not compare prices with Temu, but now it seems to have changed its strategy. According to foreign media reports, Amazon will monitor the prices of sellers’ products on various platforms. If a product is priced lower on the Temu platform, the product will be kicked out of the “Featured Offers” program . This statement has not been officially confirmed, but some Chinese sellers claim to have been affected.

Amazon launches low-price shopping mall Haul. During the Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday period, Amazon vigorously promoted the low-price shopping mall Haul, and many products were sold out. Recently, Amazon has further strengthened its low-price shopping mall and opened the second wave of merchants to settle in. Sellers can apply for settlement through background invitations or by applying to the investment manager. Haul is a benchmark against Temu and is seen by the industry as a strong counterattack against Temu.

"Whether it's the rapid rise of Temu or Amazon's bet on the low-price mall Haul, both indicate that the next e-commerce battlefield will be price, not convenience . " Sellers such as Xiao Zhang said that in addition to brands, the low-price market is also prevalent, and sellers have two best options: either grow bigger and stronger and build a brand, or optimize the supply chain and win by cost-effectiveness.

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