The online market is even colder! Sellers: Where can I clear my inventory?

The last hope of this round of promotions, Cyber ​​Monday, was shattered, with sellers complaining: “Sales volume is even lower than Black Friday.”

Online shopping is even cooler, sellers are urgently looking for channels to clear stock

The psychological activities of sellers in this round of Black Friday online promotion are as follows:

17th: Don’t worry, the US station will not open until the 20th;

20th: Foreigners don’t buy the pre-orders, so they buy on Black Friday, 24th;

24th: Black Friday consumption is mainly concentrated offline, while Cyber ​​Monday on the 27th is the carnival for online sellers;

27th: Why are sales so bad? I need to clear out my inventory.

Adobe Analytics predicts that US consumers will spend a record $12 billion on Monday, up more than 6% from last year. Looking at the "beautiful" data, sellers ask: "Who is making all the money?" From the current status of sellers, the real situation is this:

“——I’m very frustrated. It’s already midnight and the orders are less than half of what they were on Black Friday.

——I specially set the alarm to increase the advertising budget last night, and this morning I found that I spent less than yesterday;

——When I woke up in the morning and checked the order volume, I saw nothing but darkness. The order volume was no different from usual.

——I feel very disappointed and ready to clear out the stock;

——With this amount of orders, is my internet connection down or is there a bug in Amazon or am I dazzled? "

In general, the overall sales performance of Cyber ​​Monday this year was not good. According to the situation in previous years, online sales on Cyber ​​Monday were higher than those on Black Friday, because during the entire Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday promotion, consumers mainly focused on offline shopping on Black Friday, and would switch to online shopping on Cyber ​​Monday. However, this year, there has been a change, and most sellers said that Black Friday is not as good as the autumn promotion, and Cyber ​​Monday is not as good as Black Friday.

Of course, there are still some sellers who have received a good number of orders, but a considerable number of them are at the expense of profits. With low prices, large discounts, and advertising costs, there is actually not much profit.

As if anticipating such a result, some sellers said that many competing products did not participate in Cyber ​​Monday this year, and the bidding prices were lowered. Some sellers did not even participate in Black Friday. The main purpose of the entire promotion was to "take advantage of high traffic" and prioritize profits.

In order to seize the last sales opportunity of this round of promotion and grab more traffic, the price war between platforms has become more intense. In the massive online price cuts launched on Monday, Amazon discounted its own-brand clothing by up to 60%, while Walmart slashed the prices of technology accessories such as movie projectors and gaming headsets by 60%.

Although Cyber ​​Monday just ended this afternoon, it seems that this year's Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday promotion is basically a foregone conclusion. To sum it up in two words, "dismal". Some sellers even said that they would cut their hands if they signed up for the promotion again next year.

Pessimism spreads, and subsequent promotions are not optimistic

According to Adobe Analytics, American consumers spent $9.8 billion online on Black Friday, up 7.5% from 2022. In addition, data from Salesforce showed that global online spending on Black Friday was $70.9 billion.

Meanwhile, the platform's sales data is also positive. Amazon said that during Black Friday, American customers bought more than 1,000 items per second, mainly beauty, home and kitchen products and toys. E-commerce platform Shopify's stock price rose 4.9% on Monday after the company reported record global sales of $4.1 billion on Black Friday, up 22% from a year ago.

However, with such data performance, the authoritative foreign media Reuters had to admit that this year's Black Friday was " A lot quieter ."

After the release of the Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday promotion data, some investors expressed pessimism. A shareholder of Nike and Amazon said that taking into account inflation, the current sales of Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday indicate that this may be a dull holiday sales season for retailers. He said that "inflation has suppressed the effect of the stimulus, making the effect of the stimulus less significant than it initially seemed." Another investor also said that he expects retailers to have to increase discounts in the coming weeks.

Adobe Digital Price Index shows that e-commerce prices have fallen for 14 consecutive months (down 6% year-on-year in October). If sellers need to lower prices further to stimulate purchases, can they still maintain their profits?

Some industry insiders directly stated that after the Black Friday online promotion, no matter whether sales are good or not, you can take a holiday in advance for the New Year. Because with the end of these two holidays, this year's holiday promotion is almost over. "The sales of Christmas and New Year are not as high as these two holidays, and if you are not in the holiday product category, you will just be a runner-up."

Adobe Analytics predicts that the $782 million spent through BNPL (buy now, pay later) is an 18.8% increase from last year. From November to last Sunday, BNPL online sales reached $7.3 billion, an increase of 14% over last year. Consumers' wallets have been emptied, and the upcoming holiday promotions are indeed not optimistic.

The US dollar exchange rate fell to 7.15, and year-end profits were eroded

Recently, sellers have focused on the Halloween and Black Friday online sales, ignoring the exchange rate changes. Now that the sales are over, they find that the US dollar exchange rate has fallen a lot, and they are even more upset.

According to data from the China Foreign Exchange Trading Center, today ( November 28), the central parity rate of the RMB in the interbank foreign exchange market was 7.1132 yuan per US dollar. As of 11:09, the RMB was quoted at 7.152 against the US dollar.

Entering November, the US dollar exchange rate plummeted. On November 1, the closing price of the US dollar to RMB exchange rate was 7.3177, but on November 27, it was only 7.1529. In less than a month, it fell by 0.1648, which was undoubtedly a heavy blow to export-oriented cross-border e-commerce sellers.

For example, if the exchange rate of USD 1 million is the same, it would be exchanged for about RMB 7.31 million on November 1, but only about RMB 7.15 million on November 27, a decrease of RMB 160,000.

The fourth quarter performance accounts for a very large proportion of the annual performance of cross-border e-commerce sellers. Even if the peak season promotion performance this year is not good, the accumulated sales in the account will certainly not be too small. If the foreign exchange is converted at this time, a large exchange loss will be incurred, which is the seller's profit.

Sellers who missed the peak of currency exchange are now slapping their thighs. One seller regretted: "The exchange rate dropped so quickly, and I missed the opportunity if I hesitated. The few thousand yuan I lost by bargaining with the factory is far less than the loss in exchange rate."

It would be fine if they just earned less, but under this year's market conditions, many sellers' profits depend entirely on the exchange rate. They are the ones who suffer the most from this round of exchange rate decline.

It is customary for the U.S. dollar exchange rate to weaken at the end of the year, as exporters tend to convert their dollar receivables into RMB before the end of the year and the Lunar New Year, which supports the RMB.

So where is the bottom of this round of US dollar exchange rate?

Many industry insiders expect the RMB to fall below 7, and some boldly predict that it will fall to 6.8. Looking at the end of the year, the RMB does have room for appreciation. Ping An Securities Research Report pointed out that the greatest stage of RMB depreciation pressure has passed, and factors favorable to the RMB exchange rate are gradually accumulating. The RMB exchange rate still has room for a small appreciation this year, and may fluctuate between 7.15 and 7.35 in the short term.

Therefore, if the seller is waiting for funds to turn over, he can consider converting the currency into RMB now. If the cash flow is sufficient, he can also hold on to it and wait and see.

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