Amazon launches new features! Sellers: Involution has become more serious

Amazon has become like Taobao again!

Recently, Amazon announced that its Rufus AI shopping assistant has launched a price history query function, allowing some consumers to view the historical lowest prices of products. This function may be promoted to more consumers in the future.

In the context of consumption downgrade, Amazon sellers are worried that this new feature will further trigger internal competition, resulting in a vicious cycle of continued lower product prices.

Amazon has been undergoing frequent changes recently, with the label “ Not competively priced ” appearing on many product detail pages . Sellers interpreted this as “the platform is forcing sellers to lower prices” and even linked the phenomenon of lost shopping carts to this label.

Amazon launches new feature! Consumers can view product price history and compare prices

According to reports, Amazon's Rufus AI shopping assistant has launched a price history query function, which means that shoppers using Rufus AI can view the price history of products.

Take a personal water filter participating in Prime Big Deal Days as an example. During the event, the price is $10, which is half of the original price of $20. If consumers want to know whether the price of this product is really reduced by a large margin, they can click Rufus and use "price history". Rufus checks the results and shows that this is the lowest price on Amazon in the past 30 days.

On the Amazon app, Rufus also displayed a line graph showing the price of the filter over the past month, with prices below $20 the entire time and even dropping as low as around $14 on a few days.

In addition, consumers will also receive notifications of price changes for items in their shopping carts. If the price of an item changes by even just 1 cent, consumers will be informed. If Amazon believes that the price of a product on its 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.

An Amazon spokesperson said that public pricing history is a trial designed to increase product price transparency and is currently only available to a small number of U.S. users. The platform will also regularly test new features to help consumers get great value from a wide range of choices.

In February this year , Amazon launched Rufus AI, an AI shopping assistant driven by the COSMO algorithm. At that time, it was only open to some consumers. In mid-July, Rufus AI began to be widely promoted. With the vigorous promotion of Amazon and other platforms, consumers have gradually become accustomed to shopping with AI, and even completely follow AI's suggestions during the shopping process. Data shows that in the first eight months of this year, the number of consumers using AI for shopping increased sharply, and it is expected that this trend will continue to develop upward in the next cross-border e-commerce sales peak season. Many consumers believe that AI enhances the shopping experience and can find the best prices.

Amazon Rufus AI's launch of a price history query function will undoubtedly affect the ordering of some consumers, especially those who pay attention to price. If consumers find that the price reduction of a product is not large, or there is a "false price reduction", they may not buy this product, but buy other products instead.

In the current environment of consumption downgrade, Amazon's new feature is good for consumers, but it will cause "harm" to some sellers, resulting in a situation where product prices are more competitive. Goldman Sachs data shows that the phenomenon of consumption downgrade in the United States exists among both high-income and low-income groups. Although consumers still spend more on necessities, they have reduced discretionary consumer spending such as cosmetics and luxury goods. As a result, Nordstrom (luxury department store chain) sales have remained flat or declined, while Nordstrom Rack (discount department store chain) sales have increased.

Faced with changes in consumer shopping trends and new platform features, sellers need to adjust and formulate relevant strategies in a timely manner to adapt to the ever-changing cross-border e-commerce.

Forced to reduce prices? A large number of sellers' shopping carts disappeared

Amazon buyers frequently receive good news, but sellers are constantly experiencing problems. Recently, a large number of sellers’ shopping carts have disappeared inexplicably. According to some sellers’ speculation, it is suspected to be related to product prices:

I lost my shopping cart across my entire European site.

The ASIN suddenly lost its Featured Offer eligibility and, along with it, the Buy Box.

The account was in good condition, but the platform deleted the recommended quotes for all products without any explanation.

Why did the shopping cart for my FBM products suddenly disappear?

Sales of best-selling products plummeted because shopping carts suddenly disappeared.

…

One of the sellers detailed that he suddenly lost the recommended quotes for all his products. After checking, he found that everything was fine with the inventory performance index of 493 and the account status of 402, with no defects. The policy compliance was 100%, the delivery performance was 100%, the delayed delivery rate was 0%, and the customer service order defect rate was also 0%... The platform failed to give a reasonable explanation.

At present , the phenomenon of Buy Box loss is still happening. As we all know, there are many reasons that affect the placement of recommended quotes . Inventory is sold out , product prices are too high , new sellers , and product sales are too low . All of these reasons will lead to no recommended quotes. Sellers generally believe that this wave of shopping cart loss is caused by product price issues. "Either the system detects that the product price has increased significantly compared to the average sales price in the past 90 days, or they have detected cheaper external quotes on other websites or markets."

Some Amazon sellers are facing difficulties: no sales if the price is raised, no profit if the price is lowered. "The platform is getting more and more competitive" is the general consensus of sellers. Recently, Amazon sellers also found that a new label has been updated on the front desk - Not competively priced!

In response to this, seller Xiao Li said that Amazon is clearly telling consumers: Don’t buy this product, go somewhere else to buy the same product at a cheaper price!

Seller Xiao Zhang said that for those sellers whose products have slightly higher prices but no differentiated advantages, their sales will likely drop sharply if they do not lower their prices after being labeled. The platform is clearly forcing sellers to engage in a price war.

Industry insiders generally believe that Amazon's frequent actions are due to the challenges from platforms such as Temu, which have brought Amazon a sense of crisis. It is understood that many sellers have found that the reason for the increase in product return rates is that consumers see the same products at a lower price on the Temu platform.

Global inflation means consumers have less disposable money to buy products than usual and pay more attention to product prices. Platforms have to change their algorithm systems in a timely manner to please consumers. For some sellers, this is a crisis. The platform's living environment is constantly changing, and some small sellers without competitive advantages are inevitably eliminated. For another group of sellers, this is also an opportunity!

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