Sales volume collapsed, sellers: Peak season is not busy!

  Since the end of the autumn promotion, the number of people reporting poor sales has increased day by day. At first, many people thought that the "decline in traffic and orders" was only a temporary thing, but the continued decline has made some sellers lose confidence. Which is the key factor: competitors' rush, keyword loss, FBA fee surge, or the new policy? As Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday are approaching, how should sellers adjust their status and prepare for the year-end?

The number of orders continues to decline, sellers: No money to be made?

Looking at the Moments and major social platforms in recent times, we can find that many sellers are troubled by the roller coaster-like changes in traffic and order volume ↓

Orders are falling, and I am afraid that today’s peak season will be missed;

There have been no orders for several days;

Sales this week fell straight by half;

It started to plummet on the 18th, and has not improved since then;

Sales volume was cut in half, but advertising expenses were not reduced much;

The order volume in 7 days is only one-fifth of the usual amount;

Only ad clicks but no conversions;

The ranking dropped from the 20s to the 200s;

The US site has plummeted, while the European site is performing OK;

Today is the bottom again;

…

According to past experience, after or even before a big sale, it is common for orders to decline. Consumers have either finished their purchases or are waiting for the next big sale to shop again at a more favorable price. However, this year’s continued downturn and roller-coaster-like decline have made some sellers anxious, worrying that “this year’s peak season will not be so prosperous?”

To be honest, the sellers' concerns are not unfounded.

The sales and ranking of the previously popular products dropped "precipitously" after the autumn promotion . Even after adjusting prices and increasing discounts, it still could not stop the decline. Many sellers felt this deeply. Some sellers even felt lucky that "seeing that everyone is like this, I feel relieved. I thought I was the only one who didn't get any orders."

The order volume of some sellers has been declining since the beginning of October, and there is still no sign of recovery until recently. "We spent a lot of money on advertising, and the Acos was off the charts, but the order volume is terrible," said the seller Xiao Liu helplessly. The money was spent, but the order volume was at the peak and then fell to the bottom. The ranking dropped from the dozens at the beginning to more than 100, and finally even dropped to more than 200.

The much-anticipated traffic increase did not come. Many sellers, including Xiao Liu, believed that this was related to the changes in the COSMO and Rufus algorithms. The redistribution of platform traffic caused some links to perform worse than before, and the keywords also rose accordingly.

Even on Halloween, some sellers did not see an improvement in their orders, and many complained about the slow peak season. Some industry insiders also predicted that traffic would be poor before the 10th of this month, and sales would be far lower than last year, which means that this situation will not change in the short term.

It is not just the platform algorithm that has a unilateral impact, but there are also multiple factors such as the continuous efforts of competing platforms such as Temu and the disappearance of natural keyword positions.

Orders plummeted, who is to blame?

It is generally recognized in the industry that a key factor in the decline in traffic and orders is the rush of competing platforms. It is understood that Temu has set the Black Friday promotion time from October 20 to December 5, which is equivalent to directly moving the Double Eleven preheating model to foreign countries, with a maximum discount of 90%; Walmart has set the time from November 11 to early December, with a maximum discount of 50%; TikTok Shop’s promotion time is from November 14 to December 17.

Amazon's latest announcement is that Black Friday will be held from November 29 to December 2, for a period of four days. It is an indisputable fact that major competing platforms have started preheating their promotions, and even local physical stores have joined in, extending the battle line and dividing traffic and orders, while having a direct impact on Amazon sellers.

Moreover, as the US election enters the sprint stage, the local people's increased attention to the election will undoubtedly distract their shopping attention and will also affect the sales of platform products to a certain extent.

Another factor reported by most sellers is the significant loss of seller keywords. Since October 20, many sellers have reported intermittent traffic, and direct traffic has disappeared recently. Some sellers have lost nearly 40 keywords, and there are many sellers experiencing the same situation.

"My ranking has been dropping in the past two days, I thought someone had messed with it", " The natural positions of ASIN suddenly disappeared at 12 o'clock the day before yesterday " , "My ranking dropped from the top ten to over 100, over 200". In general, "algorithm adjustments", "system bugs", "changes in product keywords or information", etc. may lead to the loss or reduction of keywords, thereby affecting the seller's order volume.

It is understood that this time the phenomenon of large-scale loss of keywords occurred on a large scale. Many sellers sought solutions from customer service , but it was basically useless. It is speculated that it is not a factor of the seller or competitors, but a bug in the platform.

There are also constant bugs in logistics . Some sellers reported that the fees for UPS to enter the warehouse to FBA have suddenly increased recently, from 17 US dollars per box to 36 US dollars, and some have increased by nearly 3 times. Many sellers have been frightened and either suspended shipments or cancelled the created shipments, but this bug is still recurring, making many sellers feel exhausted.

Affected by the above multiple factors , some sellers have decided not to participate in this year's promotion, and bluntly stated that "after the registration fee + event discount, there is almost no profit."

Effective now! Amazon updates its account suspension policy

As Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday are approaching, sellers are worried about the decline in traffic and orders , but they also have to be careful. After all, the law that "something unexpected will happen during the peak season" has always existed, and Amazon has never been lenient towards sellers' violations.

Previously, Amazon announced that it would upgrade its “Account Health Rating-Repeat Violations” policy at the end of October, and it has now been implemented in November.

According to the platform's policy requirements, if a seller's store violates the same Amazon policy repeatedly (i.e. 2 times or more) within 180 days, the account will be at risk of being deactivated.

Even if the seller’s account rating is very high, if the seller violates the same policy twice or more, a violation warning will appear in the background and the account rating will be downgraded more quickly, which will directly affect the seller’s account security.

But this is usually related to the severity of the violation. For example, violations of intellectual property policies are more serious, and the upper limit of the number of repeated violations is lower. However, marking second-hand products as brand new is relatively less serious, and the upper limit of the number of repeated violations is relatively high.

If the seller's account repeatedly violates the rules, it will be marked as a serious violation, and the account rating will be downgraded to 0, and the account will be at risk of being deactivated. At that time, the seller will receive a warning email from the platform and need to resolve it within 3 days. However, if the seller does not resolve it, the account will be deactivated by the platform until the seller successfully appeals.

As the peak season is approaching, while sellers are stabilizing their rankings and optimizing advertisements to improve the competitiveness of core links, they should also regularly check their account status to ensure that they are acting in accordance with the platform's policy standards to avoid affecting orders during the peak season.

Unit quantity

Peak Season

Amazon's New Deal