Recruitment has cooled down, is Amazon's operations no longer popular?

What will the future of Amazon operations look like ?

Recently, the topic of "delayed retirement" has been a hot topic in the circle. Many netizens joked that they have to rush to work at the age of 65 with white hair. Amazon's operations, which has always been known as "a hurdle at 35 years old", joked that they were fired at the age of 35 and started again at the age of 65. The difficulties they face are even more serious.

After the golden March and silver April, Amazon's operations positions have seen a low peak in recruitment. Operations professionals who are still looking for jobs have been rejected many times and are worried about the current situation: "Will Amazon operations professionals be unemployed in the future?"

Sellers' profits not meeting expectations and operational technology transparency have become factors of concern for them. Especially after Temu launched full hosting in 2022, TikTok, AliExpress and others have successively added their investment, and full hosting and semi-hosting have almost become the standard configuration of cross-border e-commerce platforms, but at the same time, they are also squeezing the survival space of operators.

Large companies are gradually "de-operationalizing" and focusing more on pure operations. When recruiting, many companies will also tilt the balance towards talents who are proficient in using software such as ChatGPT. It is good to be prepared for danger in times of peace, but will Amazon operations really lose their jobs? Or will it only eliminate some people? In addition to operations, what other positions in the cross-border circle have high demand and good salary and benefits?

With hiring cuts, is unemployment the end of Amazon's operations?

Following a small peak in recruitment in the first four months of this year , the number of recruitments for Amazon operations positions has cooled down. Many Amazon operations workers who are still looking for a job admit that they can’t find a job at all: “Many companies have posted a lot of positions, but when I went there I found out that they don’t need anyone at all.” Some companies are recruiting for Amazon operations, but they are actually recruiting for third-party platform operations, and the salaries are also kept very low.

This is not an isolated case ↓

In many companies, HR is responsible for checking KPIs, but only interviews are conducted without hiring.

The basic salary is pitifully low, and one company is worse than the last;

It would be better if you didn't quit your job and just stayed at home and lived off your savings.

I looked for 10 companies, and 9 of them were on the job search blacklist;

I sent out 35 resumes and only got one interview;

There are many operations people who spend every day in their rental house browsing recruitment software, submitting hundreds of resumes, only getting a few interviews, and never hearing from them again. Even if they are successfully hired after many interviews, they are just "firefighters" of the company. Recently, Amazon operations people who have just joined the company generally have the same experience: they are fired after working for about two months.

One operator said that he took over a slow-selling link when he first joined the company, and no matter how hard he tried to push it, it didn’t work. He was persuaded to quit after working for two months. There are many sellers in the same situation. Some of them were fired after operating for more than a month, and the independent website was even worse. A colleague admitted that "the operation of the company's independent website is like running water, basically changing every two weeks."

In addition to the factors of insufficient capacity of some small companies and the desire to hire cheaper operators, a large part of the operators are hired to "put out fires". According to sellers' feedback, some companies do not have their own advantageous products and can only roll out label products. The public model cannot accept the long promotion cycle, so they will hire some people to rescue them. If the product cannot be promoted within a period of 1 to 2 months, they will be dismissed.

These laid-off Amazon operators have returned to the ranks of job seekers, accelerating the cooling of the recruitment market.

"The operation position that our company just released was fought over by everyone," an HR shared. Shortly after the company released the position, it received nearly dozens of resumes, many of which had more than three years of work experience. You can imagine how fierce the competition is. The days of finding people for positions are gone. At this stage, it may not be so easy to find a suitable job.

It is an indisputable fact that most cross-border sellers are reducing their Amazon operations in a planned manner, or even suspending recruitment, in an attempt to minimize labor costs. Some companies have chosen to cut off some operations in order to survive. Even if some top companies release some positions, they are mainly focused on supply chain, cost and other aspects.

Obviously, compared with Amazon's operations, more leaders now focus on supply chain management. Some sellers admit that supply chain management talents are in short supply and the salary is very considerable. Take SHEIN and Dreame as examples, the salaries offered to supply chain managers are 25-40K·14 months salary and 30-40K·15 months salary respectively. The main job is to manage inventory and connect with suppliers.

The industry is reshuffling at an accelerated pace, and the cooling employment environment has also put a lot of pressure on many Amazon operators who are looking for jobs. They are deeply worried: "Will the end of Amazon operations be unemployment?"

In their opinion, in the future, it is very likely that sellers will continue to reduce their numbers or recruit more operators. The most discussed word in the seller circle this year must be "declining profits". Low-priced products do not sell well, high-priced products have few orders, and crazy advertising does not sell well, but the fees collected are increasing year by year. Most sellers in the first half of the year are unprofitable.

According to a media survey, in the first five months of this year, more than 60% of sellers saw a downward trend in revenue, and 40% of them saw a revenue drop of more than 30%. Business is not as good as before, and the probability of sellers losing money has increased, so many companies choose to recruit conservatively and use one person for multiple tasks.

Moreover, more and more sellers prefer AI to replace manual labor. Some cross-border sellers are using AI to handle some relatively low-end and tedious tasks, which were previously part of Amazon's operations. Although AI cannot completely replace manual labor, it cannot be denied that after the emergence of AI, the company's demand for operations has decreased.

Many sellers in the industry have the same feeling: as the platform algorithm gradually matures, Amazon operations can do less and less. When promoting products becomes an arithmetic problem, how much investment will produce how much performance, ROI is basically fixed in a range, and the possibility of doing it below is not great.

Nowadays, many Amazon operations have become more transparent. The previous black technologies have basically been eliminated. Now that compliance has become the mainstream, more emphasis is placed on the true strength of operations, such as product selection capabilities, supply chain capabilities, and the ability to control processes.

The concerns of some operators are not without reason. If operators only know some simple operations, then being replaced is only a matter of time. And as the full hosting and semi-hosting models become the standard for cross-border e-commerce platforms, the survival space of operators is increasingly squeezed, and the requirements for operational capabilities will only be higher.

As cross-border e-commerce platforms move towards hosting, will the operating space be squeezed?

Since Temu took the lead in the field of full hosting, cross-border e-commerce platforms have flocked to the hosting model. It seems that any platform that does not join the hosting model will be out of place↓

Temu: Full custody will be launched in September 2022 , and semi-custody will be launched in March 2023 ;

TikTok: Full hosting will be launched in May 2023 ;

Shopee: Full hosting will be launched in July 2023 ;

TikTok: Full hosting will be launched in May 2023 ;

SHEIN: Semi-custody will be launched in May 2024 ;

Amazon: Launching a semi-hosted low-price mall in 2024;

…

Cross-border e-commerce platforms vigorously promote the hosting model, which greatly reduces the operating threshold for sellers. In the eyes of sellers, the use of full hosting can bring convenience, and the second is that it shortens the supply chain process and reduces dependence on operators.

Sellers only need to be responsible for supplying goods, quoting prices, listing products, and sending goods to the platform's warehouse. There is no need to follow up on the subsequent series of links, and naturally there is no need for operations. Compared with full trusteeship, the semi-trusteeship model is more flexible and proactive, allowing sellers with suitable conditions to take the initiative and conduct differentiated operations. Industry insiders revealed that about 40% of sellers have already started to deploy semi-trusteeship business.

"The cross-border business is going to change, the hosting model is becoming more and more popular, and it will be difficult for operations to find jobs," a cross-border seller said. Many sellers agree with this view that "with the platform taking care of everything, operations basically have nothing to do." However, some sellers pointed out that sellers who transform into fully managed factories may cut their operations teams, but this is only a small number, so there is no need to be pessimistic.

So in the future, will operators lose their jobs? I think not, but the number of operators needed will decrease, and the threshold will naturally become higher and higher.

A common phenomenon at the moment is that large companies are gradually working on "de-operation". A big seller @大文总 who has been working on Amazon for 7 years mentioned that many large companies separate sales and operations. Amazon operations only do pure operational "operational work", such as listing, shipping, placing orders, and following orders. The reason for doing this is to increase the substitutability of bottom-level operations. By separating the basic miscellaneous work, simpler people can be used to get started, without the need for rich experience, and the recruitment cost is also low.

In the past, it took ten operators to do the work. With this allocation, two managers and four executive operators can do it, and the price is cheaper. Cross-border sellers are becoming more cautious in spending on human management costs, which is undoubtedly a warning to operators. It is particularly important to enhance their own irreplaceability.

On the other hand, AI has penetrated. Since 2022, when AI intelligence was promoted in the cross-border circle, big sellers were the first to test the waters. Taking Huakai Yibai as an example, in 2023, AI engines assisted intelligent decision-making 30 million times, generated 4 million platform copywritings, recommended 7 million categories, and evaluated 10 million category matchings... From procurement to product selection and customer service, AI can be seen in all aspects.

In recruitment, we can see that some Amazon operation positions have begun to require proficiency in using software such as ChatGPT, and some companies are directly recruiting ChatGPT operations, and the recruitment requirement is that operations must have a certain amount of AI knowledge reserves. Subsequently, many service providers have also begun to vigorously develop AI applications, such as in-site message AI tools, AI image tools, etc., which have been introduced into operations work.

At present, many companies have joined the AI ​​army and have achieved some success. "The workload of three people in the past can now be completed by two people," a seller revealed. AI can write titles, answer QA questions, and mine keywords. It is undeniable that it will eliminate a large number of people, but AI cannot replace high-tech operation methods.

As for AI, industry insiders generally believe that they should embrace and understand it, and use AI to complement themselves and reduce their burden. Some operators said that using AI to handle copywriting and data collection has greatly improved efficiency. @大文总 also said that current operations should avoid repetitive and mechanical work, but should have a deeper level of thinking "to explore the root cause of a product's success", from the site, to competitors, to the market, and even what the sellers in this market were like last year.

It can be said that both the de-operation of large companies and the popularization of AI are helping closed operations improve their own capabilities. It is good to be prepared for danger in times of peace, but operations do not need to be too anxious. Hosting is now popular, but we do not know how it will develop in the future. It is better to spend time and energy to improve your own irreplaceable capabilities.

Recently, many operators are still in a difficult situation of finding a job due to being fired or quitting without a job, but some boutique operators still have opportunities. A junior Amazon boutique operator admitted that he had been looking for a job in Shenzhen for half a month and received many interview opportunities, but the salary during the trial period was only about 7K.

One operator revealed that he had previously been engaged in distribution operations and now wanted to switch to refined operations, but the process was difficult. Many companies were not interested in distribution operations, and some companies even explicitly required experience in boutique operations during recruitment, and did not consider distribution operations experience.

More and more companies are developing in the direction of refinement, and their requirements for comprehensive operational capabilities are bound to be higher, but the salary level of operations is reduced. This also means that the reduction of team members is inevitable, and the remaining operations are mostly high-end talents. For operations, if you want to continue to develop in this industry and get a high salary, you must continue to learn and practice to maintain your competitiveness and avoid being eliminated.

Demand continues to grow, and there are still these popular positions in the cross-border circle

Compared with the past, the attractiveness of operation positions to people in the industry is no longer the same as before, and even the industry salary has dropped by 3% compared with the same period last year. Judging from the current situation, the survival space of ordinary operations will gradually be squeezed, and there will be less and less market. So, what are the high-quality positions in the cross-border circle?

Supply Chain Manager. Major retailers including SHEIN and Dreame Technology have established supply chain positions, which are mainly responsible for supply chain planning and system establishment, exploring and introducing core supply chain resources, managing suppliers, optimizing and integrating supplier resources, and ensuring procurement costs and delivery. Dreame offers a salary of 30,000 to 40,000 yuan*15% for this position. At the same time, Dreame also has positions closely related to the supply chain, such as cost manager and quality manager, which is enough to show the careful consideration of major retailers for the entire supply chain.

Product development position. As the position with the highest ceiling, it is also the position that is easiest to work alone after becoming independent from the company. Product positions determine the company's product line and contact first-tier suppliers. Currently, the market is very friendly to developers who have supply chain resources and can independently develop product lines, but they do not require more than a few years of experience. The sweeping robot is selling well, and the salary offered by Zhuimi to product managers is 20,000-35,000. Previous data from Zhiyouji showed that the number of development recruitments in 2024 increased by 418% compared to 2023, and the number of recruitments from February to April this year continued to rise.

AI-related positions. Taking the positions currently being recruited by a large retailer in Shenzhen as an example, the salaries for senior developers and development experts are mostly between 10,000 and 15,000 yuan, but the salary for artificial intelligence product managers is quite high, at 35,000 yuan. The recruitment requirements are to be able to analyze the competitive advantages and disadvantages of ChatGPT products and market demand, and to propose solutions and strategies for developing ChatGPT products.

Risk control experts. After the account suspension wave, it also sounded the alarm for many sellers. The previously underestimated risk control specialists /compliance operations have now become popular in the industry. Many big sellers even spend a lot of money to hire headhunters from large companies to recruit risk control experts, offering an annual salary of up to 300,000 yuan, and their responsibilities are to study Amazon's policies and risk control.

Overseas promotion. According to feedback from industry insiders, the base salary for overseas promotion positions is the highest in the cross-border circle, and the promotion salary is generally around 15,000-50,000. And with the sellers' desire for off-site traffic and the influence of the brand overseas trend, more sellers will develop in the direction of branding, and the demand for promotion personnel is also rapidly expanding.

GTM manager. Also known as trader, he not only needs to understand products and technologies, but also market insights, marketing, pricing and other knowledge. He mainly appears in the consumer electronics industry. In the past two years, top sellers including Anker have begun recruiting for this position.

It is foreseeable that today's cross-border e-commerce industry is at an important juncture of refined transformation. Not only is the hosting model popular, cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and AI trends have become the mainstream in the cross-border circle, but even the recruitment situation in the entire industry is changing.

Looking back at 2023, the structural contradiction between difficulty in finding employment and difficulty in recruiting has always existed. Some people remain optimistic about the employment environment, while others believe that the threshold for employment is constantly being raised and it is difficult to find a job. The operation market has changed from the initial high demand to a relatively saturated operation position. Many operators have no choice but to choose to work alone or even change careers.

As time goes to 2024, industry insiders generally believe that the industry's recruitment demand has picked up, but operations do not agree with this view, believing that the "golden March and silver April" in previous years have evolved into "copper March and iron April" this year. At the same time, the market has also become more fragmented, with job seekers complaining about the difficulty of finding jobs and low salaries, while cross-border companies say they simply cannot recruit suitable talents.

The reason is that the recruitment thresholds for various positions are constantly increasing, and due to changes in the market environment, the salaries of many positions have been reduced, which easily leads to a mismatch between positions and job seekers' needs. This situation often occurs in operation positions. As for the development positions we are familiar with, although the recruitment demand has been rising this year, the salary has not risen with it, but has remained the same as last year.

Even so, cross-border companies still maintain high talent screening standards, and some companies will choose to hire excellent part-time workers to save costs. In the uncertain industry environment in the future, job seekers should focus on improving their own abilities and making themselves irreplaceable in order to seek longer-term development and higher salary packages.

Amazon

operations

recruitment