Orders dropped sharply! Traffic of sellers on multiple platforms declined

A large number of cross-border sellers are experiencing the darkness before the peak season!

" I thought I was the only one whose orders dropped, but it turned out to be the same for everyone ... I felt a little sad at the same time." Seller Xiao Zhang said helplessly. Recently, a large number of cross-border sellers have seen a sharp drop in sales, including sellers on Amazon, Temu, eBay and other platforms, who have been hit by the decline in traffic and are suffering.

Sales of sellers on many platforms have declined! Temu is no exception

According to feedback from cross-border sellers on multiple platforms, the sales decline is very serious, and some sellers even have no sales:

In the first two months , we could still place 20 to 30 orders every day, but now it has been in single digits for half a month in a row.

We had over a million Halloween goods, but now we only sell a dozen orders a day .

I thought I was the only one falling , but it turns out everyone is the same.

With the rate of decline going on like this, is there still hope for this year’s peak season?

The same is true for the European site, where the order volume has fallen even more significantly than in September.

Now the instant kill is as bad as no instant kill at all, it has no effect at all.

The number of orders on the Amazon platform has indeed declined significantly recently .

The same is true for live streaming e-commerce.

All the traffic has been taken away by Temu .

Temu doesn’t have any orders either !

…

Whenever sales decline, sellers on Amazon and other platforms often think that Temu has taken away their orders. This time, Temu seller Xiao Li said that he would not take the blame, "Temu's sales have been dismal recently, and some Halloween products have not yet started to sell well. The number of orders every day is almost in the single digit..."

As we all know, every year before Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, cross-border sellers almost always experience a decline in sales, as consumers are holding back on spending and waiting for big sales to start shopping. This year is no exception. However, sellers generally believe that this year’s anomaly is that sales are worse than in previous years, and each year is getting worse.

"Although last year was bad, it has never been this bad, especially now it's the end of October. Normally traffic would increase around Halloween, but this year is abnormal." Many Amazon sellers, including Xiao Zhang, said that they are considering changing careers recently. If sales during Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday are still not as good as expected, they will quit Amazon.

A group of Amazon sellers: Sales have been declining year after year, and the platform algorithm is not friendly

As a cross-border e-commerce giant, Amazon has attracted many sellers to join the sales. According to the sales age, there are many old players who have been in the market for more than 15 years. Compared with the past, these sellers clearly feel that the difficulty of operation is increasing year by year, and the sales and profits of the stores are decreasing year by year.

Seller Xiao Liu said that he has been selling on the Amazon platform for 6 years, and his sales have been declining almost every year. Although he has been trying various methods (editing photos, changing keywords, adding advertisements , etc. ) to save sales , his sales have been declining.

Take the past two years as an example, sales have dropped by 50%-70%. For a certain product, the sales that used to be completed in just one day now take an average of two weeks to achieve. In the operation process, troubles arise almost every once in a while. "Last year, the platform required us to prove the UK VAT settings. This year, the platform removed the product from the PAN-EU program without our knowledge and shipped it using EFN because the product was wrongly classified as food. We had to spend thousands of dollars to solve the problem..."

During the operation, Xiao Liu also discovered that once a hot-selling product starts to gain volume, a large number of competitors will soon follow suit, copy their own company's product design, and sell it at a lower price.

Xiao Liu believes that Amazon’s serious internal competition and increasingly stringent review policies have brought obstacles to its operations. In addition, “the platform’s change in search algorithm” is also one of the important reasons for the decline in sales.

" When searching for most products using a PC , almost every search will only display a maximum of 7 pages of results . There is suspicion that the platform is deliberately hiding better matches or cheaper items . Especially after Amazon updated its algorithm, advertising fees are dominating product positions . The top-ranked products are almost all products that have paid large advertising fees. " Xiao Liu observed that for products to appear on page 1 of search results , sellers must pay or have their products become one of the top 20-25 natural results.

In terms of the external environment, the rise of cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Temu has also had a huge impact on some Amazon sellers.

Cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Temu inevitably sell some of the same products. In recent years, Amazon has become more and more expensive, giving platforms such as Temu an opportunity to take advantage. A consumer said that this summer, he bought a complete patio set on the Temu platform for only $74.99 (arrived within 3 days), while the SAME EXACT patio set on Amazon was $279. The Temu platform is obviously cheaper.

"The decline in Amazon seller traffic is precisely because other platforms have taken away part of the traffic," many sellers believe.

In order to save the order volume, many Amazon sellers actively carried out multi-platform layout based on the principle of "join if you can't beat them", and successively opened cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Temu, SHEIN, and TikTok Shop. "Amazon is becoming more and more unfriendly. We opened other platforms only because Amazon reduced the exposure opportunities for products, and selling on multiple platforms is an additional way out." Xiao Liu said helplessly.

Black Friday "order grabbing" war! This peak season is not peaceful

At present, a large number of Amazon sellers regard peak season promotions such as "Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday" as this year's "life-saving straw" and are looking forward to the arrival of the peak season.

Forecast data shows that sales during the 2024 holiday season will reach $989 billion, with a growth rate of 2.5% to 3.5%. This year's holiday season is definitely a sales carnival, but as usual, not all sellers can feel the joy of this explosion of orders, and the situation of multi-platform diversion will not disappear with the arrival of the peak season.

Best Buy, the US retail giant , has announced its full holiday promotion schedule, with Black Friday deals starting early on November 8 and ending on December 20. In addition, Cyber ​​Monday sales will begin on Sunday, December 1, when customers can enjoy discounts of up to 50%.

In addition to Best Buy , Amazon's competitors such as Walmart and Temu also have peak season promotions. This shows that some Amazon sellers may still have poor sales during the peak season.

Amazon sellers should note that this year Amazon has extended the Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday promotion time. The Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday event in 2024 will start at 00:00 on November 21, 2024 and end at 23:59 on December 2, 2024, with the duration extended to 12 days. In addition, the Prime exclusive discount has changed from free to paid: the US fee is $50.00.

The operating environment of the Amazon platform changes year by year. The rise of multiple platforms threatens some Amazon sellers. Cross-border e-commerce is no longer a simple business.

Black Friday

Amazon Platform