Amazon warehouses are seriously overwhelmed! Many sellers' inventory capacity dropped sharply in November

Cross-border logistics is constantly turbulent!

Many cross-border people's evaluation of the peak season is: they only see the logistics costs rising, but the product sales remain stagnant ... Recently, Amazon sellers have found that logistics costs are going to increase again.

According to feedback from many sellers, the inventory capacity was originally large in October, but it suddenly dropped sharply in November, and it is expected that a lot of excess storage fees will be incurred.

In addition, the "Amazon warehouse explosion" phenomenon also occurs during the peak season every year , with warehouses such as SMF3, LAS1, GYR3, LAX9, and ONT8 canceling or changing contracts for no reason.

Storage capacity drops sharply in November! Many Amazon warehouses are overwhelmed

Recently, many Amazon sellers found that their inventory capacity dropped sharply in November, and they had to pay thousands to tens of thousands or even more in overage fees:

As sales increased, there should have been more inventory capacity, but the inventory capacity dropped sharply in November.

When we looked at it at the beginning of October, the storage capacity in November was more than that in October. Now it has been cut in half.

In the same situation, the storage capacity has been reduced by more than half, but a lot of goods have already been shipped.

Is the platform trying to charge more overage fees?

…

According to feedback, the storage capacity of one of the sellers was reduced by more than half, and the inventory volume exceeded the storage capacity by a lot, which meant that he had to pay nearly 100,000 yuan in excess fees in November. Now his application for capacity expansion has not been reviewed, and he is suffering.

Regarding the sudden drop in storage capacity in November, the editor found that Amazon had issued a related announcement two months ago. The specific content is as follows:

Most sellers will see higher estimated capacity limits in October and lower estimated capacity limits in November. In September and October each year, the fulfillment center team focuses on the receiving process to ensure that products are properly placed in the correct fulfillment center; in November and December, they focus on processing customer orders. If a seller needs additional capacity, they can request a limit increase through the Capacity Manager .

Regardless, many sellers were caught off guard by Amazon’s move. Starting from October 15th every year, Amazon will charge peak season delivery fees, and storage fees will be tripled, which will undoubtedly bring greater challenges to sellers in stocking up.

In fact, in addition to the storage capacity problem, sellers have also found that Amazon’s warehouses are seriously overwhelmed, and the speed of receiving and putting goods on the shelves is very slow. Almost all of the recent shipments have encountered the situation where they are signed for but not put on the shelves, and the platform only gives an estimated time for putting goods on the shelves, and no matter how much they urge, it is useless.

Many freight forwarders said that with the recent increase in sellers’ shipments, many warehouses were overwhelmed and contracts were cancelled or changed without reason, such as

Popular warehouses include SMF3, SCK4, LAS1, GYR3, SBD1, LAX9, ONT8, etc. Among them, reservations for GYR3 and GYR2 warehouses have been approved until late November.

Warehouse overflow is something that is bound to happen during Amazon’s peak season every year. When faced with this problem, sellers seem to have no better way than to wait.

The US line is full! Has the logistics company received an increase in cargo volume?

According to market rumors, many container shipping routes, including the Americas, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, are experiencing capacity overflow.

According to the editor's verification, multiple freight forwarders all said that the story was true. Since the US route has been full recently , the shortage of space is getting more and more serious, and the arrival of goods needs to be predicted in advance . Some even said that there will be no space on the US route by the end of the month.

One of the insiders told the editor in detail that due to the explosion of cargoes to the United States, many accounts began to limit the quantity, that is, the daily shipment volume was restricted.

The serious phenomenon of overbooking is not mainly caused by "a substantial increase in freight forwarders' cargo volume". With the arrival of the traditional peak season for cross-border e-commerce, freight forwarders reported that the cargo volume received by e-commerce platforms such as Amazon has indeed increased, but overall, there are more factors for shipping companies to reduce sailings.

"The impact of shipping companies reducing voyages is still relatively large. Recently, there has been a serious problem of container abandonment in East China," a freight forwarder told the editor. Due to overcapacity and the shipping companies' desire to artificially increase prices, shipping companies have drastically reduced their ship capacity.

Statistics show that the idle container fleet in the world has increased significantly recently, and the idle container ship capacity in the world has once again exceeded 1 million TEUs. Just recently, THE Alliance officially announced that the Asia-North Europe FE5 route and the Asia-US East Coast EC4 route will be suspended from the 46th week until further notice.

It is also worth noting that the air delivery prices in Europe and the United States have also been rising recently. At the same time, DHL and FedEx also charge "storage fees", the details are as follows:

Starting from October 23, 2023, all FedEx international shipments arriving at the U.S. ports of entry will be required to pay storage fees if the goods stay at the customs clearance location for more than 2 days. Please note that from the third day onwards, if the goods are still at the customs clearance location, storage fees will be charged until the shipment completes the customs clearance procedure and leaves. The charging standard is: 0.6 RMB/KG/day, and an additional basic fee of 150 RMB per ticket will be required .

Yienjun learned that the purpose of this policy is to allow goods to circulate more quickly and improve customs clearance efficiency. In principle, the recipient pays the fee. If the recipient does not pay, it will be defaulted to the sender.

A Shenzhen logistics company went bankrupt after running away with 20 million yuan?

On the one hand, the container shipping market is experiencing capacity overflow on many routes, including the Americas, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. On the other hand, logistics companies are of varying quality, and bankruptcy has occurred frequently. Recently, news broke that a logistics company in Shenzhen absconded with 20 million yuan, and had changed its name many times to collect money and run away.

According to insiders, a logistics company in Shenzhen disappeared with 20 million yuan. Its routine is as follows: after receiving the goods and freight from customers, it did not pay the next customer, then said that the capital chain was broken and it went bankrupt, then it disappeared, and then used other different companies to change its name and resume its old business and continue to collect goods and ship goods in the international logistics industry.

The whistleblower said that the specific true situation and details still need to be further verified. A rough estimate is that the amount involved exceeds 20 million yuan. For this reason, some cargo owners from other places have come to Shenzhen specifically to defend their rights.

Regarding this matter, the latest news shows that "the amount involved exceeds 20 million" is not true, but the logistics company did go bankrupt.

Every time news about a logistics company going bankrupt comes out, it triggers a wave of heated discussions, with the focus of discussion basically revolving around topics such as "low prices" and "identifying logistics companies", and this time is no exception.

Many industry insiders said that there are too many non-compliant logistics companies in the cross-border circle. These logistics companies have tight cash flow, very limited risk resistance, and no ability to operate channels independently. They have to use ultra-low prices as a "weapon" to compete with their peers. Their unit price for receiving goods is very low. After receiving the goods, they often dump the goods. The goods received are in one hand and out the other. When the problem is finally exposed, the seller's goods may have been transferred several times and no one knows where they are. In summary, " low-price receiving, ultra-high compensation, and long payment period " are all gimmicks that many unscrupulous logistics companies want to attract goods . When choosing a logistics company, sellers still need to keep their eyes open and enhance their ability to distinguish between good and bad.

It can be observed that as bad logistics companies are rampant with low prices and disrupting the market, and compared with the previous two years, the overall shipment volume has dropped a lot, some conscientious freight forwarders have been forced out.

People familiar with the matter told the editor that due to the bad environment, many logistics companies have closed down this year, especially some small logistics companies. The bosses could not hold on any longer and had to go out to work again.

"Since I can't receive the goods, I don't expect to make money anymore. As long as I can keep this job, it's fine." A freight forwarder said that this year has been difficult and predicted that 2024 will be even more difficult.

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