With only 6 orders sold a day, the small Amazon seller who is lying flat "retires early"

A small seller who received six orders a day reached a settlement with himself

In the cross-border circle, the listing stories and myths of benefit creation of big sellers always attract people's attention quickly, while those small sellers who only earn 10,000 or 20,000 yuan a month rarely receive attention.

But the fact is that a considerable number of Amazon entrepreneurs are in this state, and they have no intention of changing the status quo. Instead, they have entered a "semi-retirement" state early on.

“I’ve been working on Amazon for seven years, and I only have about six orders a day on average. I don’t seem to be able to do more than that. I make a little over 20,000 yuan a month, which is enough to keep me going, and is better than working.” This is how Xiao Cui, a seller on Amazon, described his current situation.

As for future plans, Xiao Cui said that he has basically laid down and entered a semi-retired state. In the past, he might have thought about expanding the scale and pursuing the so-called "financial freedom", but now he feels that the current state is pretty good. He earns enough for living expenses every month and has a surplus, which can be regarded as achieving a certain degree of freedom.

Xiao Cui's idea is gaining support from more and more Amazon sellers.

"We have an average of 5 orders per day, and each order has a net profit of 30 US dollars. I am content with what I have."

"I agree. I only have 500-600 orders a month, and the average profit is about 70 yuan per order. I still have time to take my family out for travel."

"I don't have high requirements. I just need to have more than ten orders a day. It's not that tiring."

Xiao Cui believes that the focus for small sellers is not on the number of orders, but on the profit that can be achieved with each order. If they blindly pursue high order volumes, they may fall into the dilemma of increasing revenue but not profits.

Compared with working in an office, Xiao Cui said frankly that the biggest advantage of working on Amazon is the freedom of time. He may only spend a few hours in the store every day, and the rest of the time is at his own disposal.

On the other hand, another big advantage of starting your own business is that there is no risk of layoffs. Xiao Cui's Amazon store and products are now very mature, and because the scale is relatively small, the risk is also small. Xiao Cui feels that unless he doesn't want to do it anymore, he can do it until he is old.

But is the reality really as optimistic as Cui thinks?

Small sellers who can't lie down are stung by rising costs

In the past two years, Amazon's entrepreneurial environment has undergone tremendous changes.

In the first half of this year, Amazon announced the addition of a new warehousing configuration fee. At that time, some sellers even paid up to $10,000 in warehousing configuration fees for a single shipment .

What makes sellers even more angry is that after this year's Prime Day, without Amazon's explicit notification, many sellers found that the fee had quietly increased. "Before Prime Day, the warehouse configuration fee for a product of about one kilogram shipped to three warehouses in the western United States was about 1.76 yuan per piece, but now it is 2.46 yuan."

One seller pointed out that his products were shipped from three warehouses in the US West Coast. Previously, the cost per piece was about $0.2, but now the cost is $0.28. Another seller said that under the same warehouse division, his cost per piece increased from $0.16 to $0.24, a 50% increase.

In addition, Amazon has recently announced a number of fee adjustments: it is reported that this year the platform will charge a fee of US$50 for each Prime-exclusive discount.

This is not good news for many sellers who are accustomed to participating in big promotions at low cost, because some sellers may only participate in free promotions, with Prime exclusive discounts being their first choice.

In August this year , many sellers reported receiving a notice about the new advertising management fee in the Canadian market. The notice stated that starting from August 15, 2024, any advertisement placed on the Canadian site will be charged a 3% advertising management fee.

These fee adjustments, even if they are just slight increases, will be a huge cost burden on small sellers.

Judging from various signs, Amazon seems to be sending out signals of clearing out small and medium-sized sellers, and some sellers with weaker financial strength have already chosen to leave.

Nowadays, the trend of a small number of top sellers occupying most of the market share has become increasingly obvious, and the living space of small and medium-sized sellers is also being continuously compressed.

It seems that there are only two options left for small sellers: to seek change with difficulty or to stick to the status quo, but no one can tell which option is better.

What is the way out for small and medium-sized sellers on Amazon?

What is the way out for small and medium-sized sellers on Amazon in 2024?

Affected by emerging platforms such as Temu, even Amazon, as a leader, has felt the pressure, and the platform is passing this pressure on to sellers.

Amazon's second-quarter 2024 financial report showed that the growth of its core retail business was slowing down, with sales in North America reaching US$90.033 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9%, but revenue growth was lower than expected.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy once pointed out: "Affected by Temu, more and more American consumers no longer pursue high-end goods, but choose to buy low-priced products with better cost performance."

Based on this background, many sellers have fallen into the vortex of low-price circulation, which will be fatal for small and medium-sized sellers.

In the past, some sellers would choose to incur strategic losses in the early stages to harvest traffic and boost rankings through low prices, but this approach basically no longer works.

For small and medium-sized sellers, it is better to focus more on polishing products instead of cutting prices, so as to make a profit from every sale, which will ensure a more stable and long-term business. In addition, logistics, inventory and supply chain should also be links that small and medium-sized sellers should continuously optimize.

On the other hand, brand transformation is a major trend now, and small and medium-sized sellers are no exception. Nowadays, social media platforms led by TikTok and Meta have become a powerful tool for brands to obtain traffic, and are now the way to obtain traffic with the highest input-output ratio.

After the short video model became popular, it broke the barrier that only professionals could create video content in the past, allowing everyone to show their lives through short videos, and brands can also quickly gain traffic and fans through short videos.

Finally, for small and medium-sized sellers who do not have strong financial and resource strength, it is best not to put all their eggs in one basket. For example, if you bet your entire fortune on one platform, Amazon, you may find it difficult to afford the risk if something goes wrong.

Amazon

Small seller

retire