Halloween orders plunged, and sales in many categories were sluggish

The Halloween " scare " is here.

In October, Amazon sellers did not feel the traditional peak season. Halloween brought everyone's sales to the lowest point, and this year's Halloween cycle seemed to be shorter than last year. On the other hand, winter products have not yet started to increase in volume. Now holiday products and seasonal products are a gamble, and many can only be cleared at a loss.

And yesterday, Amazon released a new announcement on capacity restrictions for the November peak season. One way for sellers to avoid being charged high storage fees is to sell at low prices.

Faced with the siege of strong competitors such as Temu and TikTok Shop, Amazon is gradually forcing sellers to grab traffic at low prices.

Sales of multiple categories are sluggish, and Halloween orders are low

Halloween is the first holiday of the traditional peak season. On Halloween, many Amazon sellers reported that their sales were extremely poor. Some people joked: "Americans really celebrated Halloween today."

Specifically, orders in multiple categories are currently plummeting, especially in 3C, outdoor, office, pet, and outdoor categories.

One seller said that he has been staring blankly at his eyes every time he opens his account recently. He sells office products, and August and September are indeed the busiest months . In October, sales fell by half, and it is getting worse and worse . With less traffic, everyone is scrambling for advertising, and there is simply not enough advertising money. He can't help but wonder: "Is the peak season coming? Why is the traffic so bad?"

According to 3C sellers, orders have dropped to single digits; feedback from home sellers is extremely poor, having bottomed out in the last week of October. Feedback from sellers in more categories is as follows:

"——A certain subcategory under the sports category is much less popular than last year;

——Computer accessories: Sales have not increased since the Autumn Member Day, and have been bleak. Logically, there should be an increase in traffic during the peak season, but there is none;

——Sales volume of office products was also cut in half ;

——The product is under Art. Now the orders are half of the back-to-school season . The order volume before the peak season is poor, and everyone is waiting for promotions before buying ;

——After the autumn promotion for outdoor products , the traffic has been slow. I don’t know if it’s due to the off-season or the market environment .

——Office - related jobs were zero in the past few days ;

——Industrial and Scientific sales were halved . I thought it was because of Halloween. It seems that T emu was having a big sale .

——Pet supplies were cut in half and then cut in half again;

- A subcategory under the clothing category, sales in October were one-third lower than in September;

——The sales volume of decorative home textiles dropped by only one-sixth after the National Day holiday;

——Pet category, 2 orders in the morning and 2 orders all day long;

——Outdoor and pet categories are having a tough time lately, and many people are like me;

——There is no order for the $5 coupon for handmade products, but if there is an order, the ranking of the major categories can drop from 100,000 to 30,000;

——The sales of clothing are very low recently, half of what they were last week. ”

Sales in many categories have slumped, and Halloween and winter products are no exception.

Many sellers were disappointed when they saw the Halloween sales, and could only comfort themselves that maybe the peak season started from Halloween. One seller said that he randomly took a screenshot of the ranking curve of Halloween products that he paid attention to last year, and it was obvious that this year's traffic period was shorter than in previous years , so there must be more goods in stock, and the price started to drop on October 20.

Obviously, the overall sales of Halloween products this year are poor. Another seller said that last year, Halloween products could be sold at a higher price for several days starting from the 20th, but this year , there has been no price increase. Other peers have similar feedback that the price has always been at the lowest level, and it was sold at a low price at the beginning. The price was immediately reduced without much increase. This year is the saddest Halloween . However, some individual products performed well and were sold out even though the price had been increased. The key lies in the product.

In addition to products, sales volume is also related to price. Some sellers reduced the prices of all products to the point where there was no profit, and yet many products still received orders . There were no orders in the 30 days before Halloween, but more than ten or twenty orders were received on the last day.

Winter has arrived, but many sellers have not yet made any moves on their winter products. In previous years, most of them would have already seen a surge in orders at this time, but this year, there is still no movement.

Peak season capacity restrictions force sellers to grab traffic at low prices

Sellers with poor sales regard price reduction as their last "lifeline", and at this time Amazon is also accelerating the sellers' low-price war.

On the last day of October, Amazon released an announcement on logistics capacity restrictions for the November peak season, and the timing was quite tight.

Amazon mentioned in the announcement that we will reduce Amazon Logistics capacity limits in November so that we can focus more on delivery operations. On average, the November limits are enough to meet five months of inventory storage needs . To ensure that inventory is kept within capacity limits in November, Amazon recommends that sellers send all inventory for 2024 after December 31, 2023 .

The storage capacity restrictions for this year's peak season have already begun. The general perception of many sellers is that they have to rely on storage capacity during the peak season. Amazon's storage capacity in October was so high, but it dropped drastically in November. Everyone prepared a lot of goods in October, which basically did not arrive until November. Due to the sudden drop in storage capacity in November, many people will be charged excessive storage fees.

"The platform said that it is enough to meet the five-month inventory quota. The daily sales in the peak season are very different from those in normal times. The time point is just at the end of October, and it will take time to clear the inventory . It is obvious that Amazon is going to start collecting storage fees. " said a seller. Some colleagues even said bluntly: "The platform is to collect storage fees in the peak season + long-term storage fees + excess storage fees."

In fact, the sudden drop in storage capacity has a great impact on some sellers. One seller 's inventory capacity in September and October was 5,000 cubic feet, and then saw that the inventory capacity in November was about 4,000 cubic feet. He shipped a lot of goods during September and October, and now they are starting to arrive at the warehouse, but found that the storage capacity in November was reduced to 2,200 cubic feet, which is more than 1,200 cubic feet over the limit, and it is estimated that it will cost 100,000 over-limit fees.

According to Alex, an industry insider , Amazon is simply forcing sellers to cut prices to grab traffic and orders. Amazon notified the November inventory changes at the end of October, largely because it needed sellers to cut prices to increase traffic during the peak season. For sellers, your goods have already been shipped, so you can either cut prices to attract traffic to Amazon or charge you very expensive storage fees.

When traffic is divided, Amazon's actions are not surprising, after all, it faces strong competitors.

In the third quarter of this year, Temu's sales exceeded 5 billion US dollars, especially in September, when the daily GMV even reached 80 million US dollars. With the arrival of "Black Friday" and Christmas, Temu may exceed the annual GMV target of 15 billion US dollars; the average daily GMV of TikTok Shop's fully managed business has reached 2-3 million US dollars, of which the US site has increased to 1 million US dollars. The goal of the US site's cross-border business is to reach an average daily GMV of 500,000 US dollars by the end of this year.

Surrounded by wolves, Amazon is going to use its trump card during this peak season.

Halloween

Sales are cold