Will Black Friday be a flop this year? A group of sellers are pessimistic about the peak season

Black Friday kicks off, and cross-border sellers are entering the ecosystem.

The much-anticipated Amazon Black Friday promotion at the end of 2023 has started. This year’s promotion is called the longest ever by sellers. From the attitudes of cross-border sellers towards Black Friday, it can be seen that some have high hopes and expect a surge in orders, and have already arranged for employees to work overtime; some directly think that Black Friday is a "charity promotion" and just want to be a bystander; others are forced to exit early, competitors keep making fun of them, and products frequently have accidents...

Overall, how is the volume of Black Friday orders on Amazon this year? What are the precautions during Black Friday?

Will Black Friday be a flop this year? Sellers have mixed attitudes

Recently, the hot topics discussed by cross-border sellers have basically revolved around Black Friday:

Black Friday, expect a huge surge in orders.

November is the month that e-commerce people dread the most , but they are tired but happy.

The US site will go on sale this afternoon. It’s my last hope this year.

The volume of orders during this peak season will determine whether you will change your career next.

…

According to the important reminder issued by the investment manager regarding the North American Amazon Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday setting up exclusive discounts for Prime members , as follows:

1. The entire time period is from November 17 to November 27 , with priority given to November 20 to November 27. [Path] Seller Central > Advertising > Prime Exclusive Discounts > Create Discount, please check both "Black Friday" and "Cyber ​​Monday", the system will cover Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday by default . The Black Friday/Cyber ​​Monday activities reported after checking will cover November 20 to November 27.

2. If you want to cover the entire Prime exclusive discount , you need to set up a separate Prime exclusive discount from November 17 to November 19, and make sure the prices for the two events are the same (required). If the prices are different, it will affect the subsequent event progress! You must check this as a Black Friday/Cyber ​​Monday discount when reporting the Prime exclusive discount.

It can be found that for many Amazon sellers, Black Friday has already started today, but many sellers plan to skip the three days from the 17th to the 19th and wait until the 20th to start the event. Sellers' attitudes towards Black Friday are "ice and fire".

Many Amazon sellers believe that based on past experience, Black Friday and Cyber ​​​​1 are the real starting points of the peak season, and a large number of consumers have already selected their favorite products and are eagerly looking forward to the start of Amazon Black Friday sales. Therefore, they are optimistic about this annual grand promotion feast and believe that in the coming days, orders will definitely increase beyond expectations.

Sellers believe that Amazon attaches more importance to Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday than in previous years. This can be seen from the actual sales situation of Prime Day some time ago. Amazon has increased its investment in advertising on various platforms, and orders have also been increasing. Sellers believe that the platform will continue its previous strategy and this year's Black Friday sales will be generally impressive.

"Follow the platform and move forward boldly. Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday will be the first time to sell out. Go ahead." A seller on the US site is rubbing his hands, waiting for the good news of a surge in orders after the official opening of sales in the afternoon. It is understood that in order to minimize unexpected situations during Black Friday, the company has adjusted the employees' working hours, extended the evening working hours, and postponed the morning working hours.

Many companies have also stipulated that the two-day weekend should be changed to a single-day weekend during the Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday period . Even after work, you should take time to look at the computer at home.

Many sellers expressed confusion about the issue of overtime during Black Friday: "It's understandable for companies with fierce competition and need to monitor advertising regularly to ask employees to work overtime, but why do small companies that don't make many orders a day have to work overtime?"

Seller Xiao Zhang did not have high expectations for this year's Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday, because most of his peers in the same category were offering crazy discounts, and their profits were worrying. "It can be observed that consumers will restrain their consumption before the big sales every year. In addition, many Amazon sellers have seen a significant decrease in orders this year compared to the same period last year , and a large amount of inventory has accumulated, which means that Black Friday Cyber ​​Monday is destined to be a clearance sale. "

Industry insiders also believe that other e-commerce platforms such as Walmart have also snatched traffic from the Amazon platform to a certain extent. It is understood that many platforms have already started selling with discounts of up to 90%. A group of consumers have shopped in advance, and the funds available for shopping on the Amazon platform will definitely be reduced.

What do you think of this year's Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday? Feel free to leave a message to discuss.

Not participating in Black Friday! A group of sellers don’t want to lose money to gain publicity

How to arrange promotions during Black Friday? Yienjun learned that some big guys with sufficient funds will "take a two-pronged approach" of flash sales and member discounts just to harvest more traffic and better rankings, but there are also many sellers who have no intention of participating in flash sales at all, and their advertising investment is even zero. Instead, they will participate in member discounts and make as much money as they can.

“ The effect of flash sales will definitely be better. If you spend money, the platform will give you more traffic, but the specific extent of the effect depends on the product ranking and financial situation . ” A small vendor said that he would be cautious when signing up for various Black Friday promotions, otherwise he was afraid that he would not even make back the registration fee in the end; and his usual orders and flash sales results were average, so there should be no surprises during Black Friday.

In fact, no matter how the Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday promotions are arranged this year, sellers are trying to maximize the input-output ratio based on their actual conditions.

Different from these sellers who decided to "shallowly" participate in Black Friday, there is another group of sellers who completely denied Black Friday and have no plans to participate in this year's Black Friday.

"When I worked in a traditional foreign trade company , I was the only one in the Amazon department, and my boss didn't even know when Black Friday was. " One of the operators said that big promotions such as Black Friday were just a loss-making business. It seemed that the number of orders would increase to a certain extent during the event, but the profit was also much lower than usual. After working hard for a while, you might not earn as much as usual in the end. Instead, it would be easier if you didn't take any action.

Another Amazon operator believes that during Black Friday , advertising costs will definitely increase dramatically, and orders will indeed be higher than usual , but orders before and after Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday have been greatly reduced. On average, there is actually not much difference in the number of orders, and there is a certain degree of "discount" in profits. The ultimate winner is just the platform.

As we all know, the peak season promotion period is also a high-incidence period for malicious competition. Therefore, this year, many sellers have said that they have been pranked by their peers and may have to "passively" miss the peak season.

"I was thinking of making a fortune quietly, but when I woke up in the morning , I found that the connection had been taken down . " One of the operators did not expect that this would happen to him and was caught off guard.

Another seller on Amazon Europe said that as early as half a month ago, he had been receiving constant malicious complaints about his products in the electronics category, causing ASINs to be constantly removed from the shelves and put on the shelves again and again. In particular, the top 100 ASINs were the hardest hit by spoofs, which seriously affected product sales.

In addition, the situation of "listings being continuously criticized by peers" has also occurred one after another, and many sellers who have been affected said that the product ratings have continued to decline...

Amazon Black Friday is still in the warm-up period, and the cross-border situation has already been revealed. What will happen next? Let's wait and see.