Tired of workplace socializing, people flock to Amazon to start businesses

Since the MBTI personality test became popular, introverts and social phobias have a new code name: i-people. On major social media platforms, topics related to i-people always arouse widespread discussion.

Among them, the topic that people discuss most is how to minimize communication with the outside world.

On a certain book platform, a popular post about "A comprehensive review of jobs that don't require social interaction" can receive hundreds of thousands of views. In the post, various unpopular jobs instantly caught people's attention: positions such as animal keeper, ranger, and librarian sound very suitable for people.

But since when, opening an Amazon store seems to have become a new goal for people. Many people think that opening a store on Amazon only requires uploading some products every day, and then packing the products and handing them over to the courier after the order is placed. It is simply the best career for people with social anxiety.

“ I don’t want to talk to my colleagues or bosses ”

It is true that if you work alone at home on Amazon, you don’t need to communicate with too many people, but on the other hand, starting your own business also comes with much greater pressure than working from nine to six.

When talking about why he chose to work alone, Amazon operations manager Xiao Ma said: "The objective reason is that after working in a company for three years, I was abandoned by the company when I should have reaped the rewards, so I was forced to start my own business. Subjectively, I was really fed up with all the KPI reports and interpersonal relationships in the workplace. "

"At that time, my work reached a bottleneck period, and there was pressure from various assessments. My only thought was, could I be left alone for a while? I didn't want to talk to my boss or colleagues at all," Xiao Ma recalled.

After starting to work on his own, Xiao Ma obviously felt much freer. Although he had to bear the pressure of profit and loss alone, he no longer had to argue with his superiors and colleagues about various trivial matters at work.

At present, Xiao Ma's store has not yet achieved profitability. He said this is mainly because advertising accounts for the bulk of the expenses. However, he is very optimistic about the future and believes that the loss-making situation will not last too long. He may be able to achieve profitability by the end of this year.

As for future plans, Xiao Ma said that he might not work anymore, after all, the days of freedom are really great. Of course, he also admitted that if he spent all his savings and still didn't make a name for himself, he would still honestly find a class and run his own shop as a sideline.

“Feeling disconnected from society”

In fact, there are many people like Xiao Ma who start their own businesses through Amazon, and naturally there are some very successful sellers among them. Brother Wang is one of the early Amazon entrepreneurs who successfully "landed".

It is understood that Wang entered Amazon as early as 2018, when the industry's bonus period had not yet ended. With his work experience in cross-border e-commerce companies in previous years, Wang's entrepreneurial journey went very smoothly, and he achieved profitability shortly after opening the store.

Brother Wang said that after going through the "hard days" in the early days of his business, his daily life gradually became sending goods and watching advertisements. When he had nothing to do, he would drink tea or go for a run, and was very leisurely.

Since he had few friends to begin with, Wang Ge basically lost contact with the outside world after he stopped working. Although he felt that he was not the kind of person who had a strong need for socializing, he still felt that something was wrong after a long time.

" I feel out of touch with society. " This is how Brother Wang describes himself.

In the past one or two years, due to the bad environment, Wang's store has also started to go downhill, with both orders and sales declining. In addition, he was really bored staying at home all day, so Wang decided to go out and find a job.

In the past few years of entrepreneurship, Wang has saved a lot of money and accumulated a lot of experience. When he returned to the workplace, Wang's attitude towards work has changed a lot compared to before.

Now, Brother Wang no longer cares about the salary and benefits, but is more concerned about whether he can get along with the boss and colleagues in the new company, whether the office environment is depressing, and so on. After all, he is no longer as embarrassed as he was when he just graduated.

In addition to Amazon sellers, many independent entrepreneurs or freelancers face similar problems. They feel they are out of touch with the outside world, facing only a computer screen every day and unable to come into contact with new people and things.

Over time, more and more "free souls" who once escaped from the workplace began to choose to return to the nine-to-six life, just to regain the feeling of "not being left behind" that can only be felt in a group.

Such stories happen almost every day. It's like a siege where people inside want to get out and people outside want to get in. Only those who are in it understand the real situation.

“A life-or-death entrepreneurial game”

The stories of entrepreneurs are basically told by successful ones, while those who fail can only lick their wounds in the dark.

Like any other field, it is not easy to succeed in Amazon. A quick search on the Internet shows that, except for those training institutions that want to attract newcomers, the real situation shared by most sellers is not that optimistic.

Seller Mia recently attended an offline Amazon sharing session. There were about 30 sellers participating, including individual sellers, couples, small teams of several people, and companies with forty or fifty people that have been in business for more than ten years.

What shocked Mia was that half of the sellers were still losing money. After the discussion, Mia found that many sellers did not have a deep understanding of Amazon and most of them just followed the trend.

These sellers do not have a clear plan for the future, and the reason they persist in making losses is often just because they are unwilling to give up. As a result, the losses continue to expand, and there are many who lose more than one million in two or three years.

Mia said she suddenly understood why Amazon's advertising bids were so high, because there were really a lot of people giving money to Amazon.

“I think there’s nothing wrong with short-term strategic losses, but you have to understand the losses clearly and make sure they’re worthwhile. Otherwise, there’s no point in blindly investing money,” Mia concluded.

Indeed, Amazon has long passed the days of making money everywhere, and many of the "entrepreneurs" who rushed in blindly suffered heavy losses and finally left the market in disgrace.

Some people say that starting a business is a life-or-death game, and if you are not fully prepared, it is best not to try. This is indeed true. Whether you are starting Amazon or starting a business in other fields, it is necessary to do sufficient research in advance.

Therefore, if you just want to avoid socializing with people, then starting a business is obviously not a good choice. Finding jobs that do not require interpersonal communication may be your ideal destination.

i People

Amazon

Entrepreneurship