Another batch of Amazon operators leave!

In the cross-border circle, Amazon operations have always been defined as a "youth job". When a certain number of years have passed, operations generally face a new form of crisis - age anxiety. At the end of this stage, there are basically only three options: become a leader and lead a team; work alone after leaving the company; or switch to other industries.

A senior HR admitted that "basically we won't look at resumes of people over 30, unless they are strong enough or can bring resources," because they will soon be replaced by younger operations staff. In the event of layoffs, older operations staff are the first to be abandoned.

In major social forums, the topic of "What should I do as an older operator after I turn 30 and suddenly lose my job?" is hotly debated by industry insiders. After all, only a few people can break into management or work alone. Where do more older Amazon operators go? Perhaps the answer can be found in the case.

Now is the peak season of March and April, and the recruitment market is becoming more and more active. Some high-quality operations personnel have several high-paying offers to choose from, while others are ordinary operations personnel who are worried about their meager basic salary and begin to worry about their future direction.

A batch of older Amazon operations have been optimized

"I was turned down when I went for an interview. As soon as they saw my age, they just asked me a few irrelevant questions and ended the interview. Does this mean women over 30 are not qualified to work?" an Amazon operator complained on a social platform.

In the eyes of the outside world, age is a hurdle in job hunting. All walks of life are increasingly relying on young people, and the cross-border e-commerce industry is no exception. Amazon operators who are 30+ and want to get a higher salary are constantly labeled as "old single", "quitting", "changing careers", "going it alone", etc., but companies are more concerned about the reality of ability and how to balance income and expenditure. Young graduates are pushed to the back-up position with advantages such as low salary and "bright eyes".

Although many companies do not mention age in recruitment information, HR will block operators over 30 when screening resumes. Most messages on recruitment websites are read but not replied to. Internal referrals also require strong capabilities. Even if you have outstanding capabilities, the company still puts forward rigid requirements before being hired, such as: you cannot have plans to get married and have children in the near future; clearly state how much profit you can generate in a month after being hired, etc. Based on the feedback from some operators, pioneering companies will pay more attention to the age, fertility status and whether they can work overtime of female operators, but cross-border companies with deeper backgrounds will pay attention to operational capabilities.

"I also thought about getting a high salary after I turned 30 and moving up a level, but in the eyes of some HRs, I have already entered middle age," said an Amazon operator. At a time when operators are everywhere, if an ordinary operator does not have a breakthrough in skills, or has outstanding performance, he or she may be replaced by the "next wave" at any time.

When faced with optimization, older operators are the first to be affected. An Amazon operator said helplessly: "The US Amazon operation of a 5-year-old single and childless person was optimized in February." According to feedback, she operated a red ocean category, with a stable account, daily sales of tens of thousands, and good performance, but suddenly she was optimized out in February and a fresh graduate took her place. With the mentality of making the best of a good situation, she submitted her resume to several companies of interest, but she didn't expect that most of them fell into the sea. Then she realized that it might be an age issue, which is also the epitome of many older job seekers.

Coincidentally, a self-employed seller said that when he was 26, he saw his colleagues who were around 30 years old were promoted because they had children, so he chose to go out on his own. Now he is very lucky, otherwise he would have been promoted as well. An independent website operator who switched to Amazon felt deeply touched by this. During the interview, many companies limited the age of candidates to under 26, probably because they were afraid of sudden marriage and pregnancy.

"I worked as an Amazon supervisor in a small company. After the link became stable, it was directly optimized," said an operator with 6 years of experience. At that time, he had no money and failed to change careers, so he chose a company with the highest base salary. He thought that the industry was not good and new products were difficult to promote, so he didn't think about taking commissions. However, a few months after joining the company, he received a new product, and it reached 100 in 2 months. The sales volume was very stable, but the boss used various tricks to ask me to find another job, saying that the company was not doing well. Finally, I learned from the HR that the link was stable and the boss wanted to find a newbie to operate it. Stuck at the awkward age of 30+, I don't know where to go.

In fact, there are many cases where older operators are optimized. There is even a consensus in the industry recruitment circle that when recruiting new general operators, people over 30 years old are basically not considered, except for those with outstanding abilities. When optimization and layoffs occur, older operators are often given priority. There are also many cases where people are satisfied in all aspects during the interview, but in the end they still don’t receive an offer. The frequent occurrence of such cases is closely related to the technical content of Amazon's operations.

The question of "What technical content does Amazon operation have?" has been discussed in the industry for a long time. Due to the differences in markets and products, it is difficult to make horizontal comparisons, and it is impossible to generate assessment standards for so-called excellent operations. Some operations can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in the previous company, but they may not even make tens of thousands of dollars in another company, and the reason may simply be that they are focusing on different categories.

It is a common view in the industry that after working for a certain number of years, operators will master all operational knowledge. However, as Amazon operators age, their value continues to shrink. In particular, wages increase with years of work, but contributions to the company do not increase at the same time. Some companies will consider replacing old employees with new employees, after all, overall cost-effectiveness is higher. This is also one of the main reasons for the high turnover rate of many cross-border companies.

It is not difficult to see why 30 is a hurdle for Amazon operations. After this hurdle, operations basically face only three options: become a leader and lead a team; quit and work alone; switch to other industries.

The first is to be promoted to a management level and become a leader, but this path is not suitable for everyone. It is pyramid-shaped, that is, the higher you go, the fewer opportunities there are and the greater the competition. It is more suitable for operators with a strong desire to perform and leadership ability. In addition, the pressure is also quite high. An Amazon manager complained that "the monthly salary is more than 20,000 yuan, which is much lower than that of a product manager, but the pressure to promote products is very high. General products are also required to be promoted to be popular in the category, and there is no budget for advertising." Once the product is promoted and the link is stable, the company will have new products to promote. Some companies even directly get rid of the donkey after it has done its job and find a new person to take over.

Not all companies have the opportunity to become leaders. Some small and medium-sized cross-border companies have few people, and may only have one or two operations personnel. They will not set up management positions. Even if medium-sized companies set up management positions, they are more inclined to recruit from outside. It can be said that there is almost no opportunity for promotion. If you don't want to wait for your age to be optimized, operations personnel can only take the initiative to change jobs, work alone, or even change careers.

Where have all the older Amazon operators gone?

Not only are they reaching the age limit, but also affected by the overall economic downturn, some young Amazon operators who have just started working and are not yet old are also anxious about the future. If they reach the so-called old age for operations, what should they do? Should they make a name for themselves, or face unemployment, or switch to other fields in advance?

According to common sense in the industry, the end of Amazon operations is to work alone, either survive or die, and this is indeed the case. There are many older sellers working alone in the industry, some of whom have fought their way out of the red ocean and earn hundreds of thousands of yuan a month; there are also those who have broken through in unpopular categories such as kitchens and have stable sales of over 10,000.

"I want to go it alone not because I am so great, nor because I am not aware of the risks of Amazon, but because I am tired of the performance targets to be achieved," said a seller who works alone. It is better to have free time, a decent life, and make money happily than to work hard to earn that 5%. In their view, the 0.05% and 0.09% commission gross profit margin is earned by working tirelessly, but if you work alone and make a product with a little effort, you can earn more than working in an office.

However, not all Amazon sellers who work alone can really turn employee wages into entrepreneurial profits. Working alone requires a lot of investment in the early stage, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars need to be invested, and not all sellers have the ability to work alone. There are many sellers who have gone bankrupt overnight. After working alone, they frequently fail to promote new products, and finally sell their stores at a loss of hundreds of thousands. Many of them are now in their 30s and are looking for jobs again.

“The product was launched in September, but we only received 1-2 orders per day after the ad was run. The conversion rate is too poor, and the review score is 4.6. The same is true even after the price was lowered,” complained a solo seller. He thought the previous new product was okay, so this one should be good too, but suddenly a bunch of sellers appeared in the category, and he was completely killed. He is currently clearing out the stock.

Only those who lose money know it. Once you check the accounts, you will be shocked. There are many independent sellers who earn only more than 10,000 yuan from a quarterly net profit of 3,000 yuan and a sales volume of more than 200,000 yuan, and the collection is not enough to cover the cost. There are many low-profit or even negative-profit sellers. A post-95s Amazon operator opened a store with a friend. The initial starting capital was 30,000 yuan, and the store profit was stable at tens of thousands of yuan. He thought it would be good to make some pocket money, but starting this year, it was difficult to launch new products and the sales of old products gradually declined. He had to choose to suspend operations after clearing all new products.

Some sellers who don’t pay attention to infringement may have their stores complained by GBC and demanded huge compensation , and eventually be shut down. A senior boutique seller mentioned that investing 100,000 or 200,000 yuan to work alone is just spreading goods, which is the most demanding of supply chain and funds. In addition to patent infringement, personal spreading is also a part of capital play in the end .

But there are also some Amazon operators who either don’t have the funds or are not interested in going it alone. In their opinion, Amazon has a lot of inventory, and now the fees on the platform are constantly rising, and there is vicious competition among peers, which leads to increasingly thin profits on Amazon. Of course, the most important thing is to devote yourself to your work all year round. Even on vacation, you need to check the data and ads all the time to avoid being copied or having your links turned into fakes.

This part of the sellers are more likely to consider changing careers and looking for a stable job. But it should be noted that once you decide to change careers, you must choose the right track, otherwise it will end in failure, and after a lot of twists and turns, you will return to the siege of Amazon.

Foreign trade is a position that many Amazon operators have switched to. Especially those who graduated from foreign trade or foreign language majors, they prefer jobs that are close to their professional skills. An Amazon operator who switched to foreign trade mentioned his current job and was more happy that "no one is chasing for sales, there are no endless meetings and forms to complete, and there is no need to fall into the tangle of self-doubt." However, operators who want to switch to this position need to be prepared for being newbies and a significant drop in salary.

Take the exam. Compared with switching to other positions, taking the exam is undoubtedly the most popular career change direction, such as teachers, clerks, etc. Previously, the boss of a cross-border company led his employees to sell goods while preparing for the exam, and eventually many employees succeeded in getting the job. This case inspired many colleagues. An Amazon operator who majored in Japanese admitted that Japan and Asia are at the bottom of the contempt chain. Many companies just do Japanese sites by the way. It is relatively difficult to find operations in this area. It is better to look for them in the United States or Europe. Otherwise, they can only switch to the civil service exam like himself.

Switching back to the B-end. Adhering to the mentality of "the e-commerce trend is declining, and industry is the king", some Amazon operations have returned to the B-end track. Although the B-end also needs to accumulate large customers in the early stage, in their view, after stabilization, they only need to do PI collection and shipment, and they don't need to keep looking at data like Amazon, which is relatively easy.

Become a translator. As we all know, some Amazon operations majors are mostly minor languages. Compared with operations majors of other majors, they have higher advantages in speaking and listening, and have more options for career change. For extroverts , foreign language live streaming is a career change for many operations; for introverts, overseas translation, written translation and other jobs have become their new choices.

In addition to the above-mentioned job transfers, positions including TEMU, TikTok stores, service providers, clerical jobs, immigration, Xiaohongshu sales, street vendors, and even part-time fishmongering in supermarkets have become options for Amazon operations to transfer or transition. As the saying goes, people outside the wall want to come in, and people inside the wall want to go out. Some Amazon operators are busy changing jobs, while others are desperately trying to get into Amazon. What about the people inside the wall now?

The golden March and silver April job-hopping season: some high-quality operators hold multiple offers

It is the peak recruitment season in March and April, and many operations people who have left their jobs are busy looking for a job with better salary and benefits, but the reality has obviously dealt them a heavy blow.

Most operators have not found a suitable job. An Amazon boutique operator with 3.5 years of experience was struggling with whether to quit his job. "The golden March and April are about to pass, and I have interviewed 5 companies but only received one offer of 9K." His self-confidence was frustrated, and his desire to quit his job was dimmed. A colleague hit the nail on the head: "If your performance is not high and you don't have experience with hot products or new products, this situation is also normal."

A Guangzhou Amazon operator who is in the process of changing careers has a deep feeling about this. Initially, he thought about changing careers, but when he submitted his resume, he found that his hope was slim. He returned to Amazon and submitted his resume again, but was told that the expected salary was only a basic salary of 7K. After being stunned by the doubts in his mind, he realized that the basic salary of 7K for ordinary operations was already very high↓

Located in Shenzhen, three years as an operations manager, base salary 6K, but commission can get more than 20,000;

Three years of boutique operation, US site, base salary 3K, plus commission over 10,000;

You can only get a basic salary if you sell 7,000 US dollars a day;

Two and a half years of experience, based in Guangzhou, base salary of 6k;

Shanghai 8K, with two and a half years of experience;

According to feedback from some operators, the salary for Amazon operators in Guangzhou is not high, mostly around 7K. Last year, there were companies that offered 8K, but this year the salary has dropped again. According to feedback from sellers, most of the companies are looking for new employees.

In the opinion of industry insiders, a big reason for this phenomenon is the sluggish market. New companies are unwilling to pay excessively high salaries. Existing companies also have systems for training operations. In their eyes, an operations officer with three years of experience has little to do with one with just one, and operations officers with less experience can also be trained slowly.

On the other hand, the salary of Amazon operators in Shenzhen is relatively stable. Some sellers reported that operators with 2.5 years of boutique experience can be offered 12K by pioneering companies. The editor interviewed several Amazon operators currently working and found that the salaries of some operators who are currently stable in Shenzhen are relatively high compared to the current job search environment. Even if the base salary is low, they can get a lot of commissions. Some operators can get 15,000 or even 20,000+.

It can be said that the so-called good or bad industry environment also needs to be subdivided into specific operation positions. There are many outstanding people who think that the recruitment market is good this year. An operation with 5 years of experience in the red ocean boutique + 3 years of management experience said frankly, "I have been looking for 20K recently. I have received offers from two companies and the initial interview pass rate is 100%." ​​However, because he is not satisfied with the company's operating model, he is still looking for a job. Judging from the application situation of this operation, those with 5 years of boutique experience can negotiate a good salary, which is much better than last year's 15 or 16 years of salary.

For job-hopping in general operations, senior boutique operations also give advice, suggesting that you find a company with category influence, and don't try to do all kinds of categories. At the same time, don't be limited, you need to see more of the world outside the company. It is recommended that you try more before you grow up, know what kind of products you want to make, what kind of company you want to go to, and plan for your future. After you have been polished to a certain degree, choose a good company to settle down.

One HR said that during the previous interviews, they found a phenomenon: some operations staff had worked for many years but their abilities were very limited. Many Amazon operations staff had worked for distribution companies for a long time before, and when they came out for interviews, they didn’t even know the difference between distribution and boutique. Some operations staff were even boxed in by their previous companies, and had only three or four years of work experience, but their abilities were not as good as those of newcomers with less than a year of work experience. In this case, they are more likely to be eliminated.

As the saying goes, when the wind comes, take advantage of your fortune to soar; when the wind goes, be calm and wait for the next outbreak . The same is true for operations. It is useless to worry about age. The truth is to focus on improving your own skills .

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