Failed to change careers! A group of people returned to cross-border

It’s not easy to change careers , so cherish every opportunity you have …

Every year, people say that cross-border e-commerce is difficult to do, and this year is no exception. Many people have been working alone for more than a year or even longer and still have not made a profit. People in the industry call cross-border e-commerce an industry that is born and dies every day. A cross-border company may be alive today and closed tomorrow. "Give up fantasy and change careers as soon as possible" has become a hot word on everyone's lips, especially at the end of each year, a group of cross-border people who have not made money want to change their careers.

As the saying goes, it is easy to enter a business but difficult to change it! "Besides cross-border e-commerce, can you do anything else?" is a very realistic question. According to feedback, many people are not satisfied after leaving cross-border e-commerce, and after several struggles, they return to cross-border e-commerce again. As sellers come and go, cross-border e-commerce as a whole continues to develop, and Amazon is still the most popular cross-border e-commerce platform for Chinese sellers.

Many people left cross-border and then returned! Do you regret changing your career?

Many people say "change careers" but cannot actually do it, and many others have already completed the life journey of "leaving cross-border and then returning to cross-border":

I changed my career and came to Amazon when the market was bad. I had nothing and had to live on the basic salary.

I have been away from this industry for a long time, working in a traditional industry, but recently decided to come back.

After leaving Amazon, I worked in several jobs and found that cross-border work was the most attractive.

It is not easy to change careers. If you don’t do well in the familiar cross-border industry, you may not do well in other industries either.

From cross-border business to domestic business, I found that cross-border business is actually easier to do and relatively less competitive, so I plan to do cross-border business again.

After failing to change careers, I returned to Amazon and struggled. I was under a lot of pressure every day. A small mistake would lead to losing money.

…

In summary, we found that after returning to cross-border business, some people's performance is still lukewarm, while there are also many sellers who have rediscovered the "beauty of cross-border business".

Xiao Zhang (pseudonym) is the latter. According to his feedback, he couldn't make it on Amazon in the past two years. Just then, a colleague of his switched to the domestic e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, where the daily order volume was very impressive. After a struggle, he temporarily gave up Amazon and tried the domestic e-commerce. Unfortunately, after a few months, the sales volume still did not improve at all. After careful consideration, he decided to work hard on the Amazon platform again. Fortunately, his work has been going smoothly since his return, and his current revenue is considerable.

Coincidentally, Xiao Li (pseudonym) also realized the benefits of cross-border e-commerce after changing careers. After working in the traditional manufacturing industry for a while, he found that this field has been almost divided up, and the input-output ratio is very low. It is very difficult for newcomers to get a piece of the pie. Although e-commerce platforms such as Amazon are also being "shrouded" by capital, they are still a stage where ordinary people can create unlimited possibilities, and the ceiling for making money is higher.

There are many similar examples. After personally experiencing career changes, everyone has come to the conclusion that career changes are easier said than done. Many times, when one feels that cross-border e-commerce is not developing well, or the e-commerce platform has reached a bottleneck and one can no longer do it, it is actually the case that one’s own development has reached a bottleneck. Cross-border people cannot change the external environment, but they can change themselves and break through the predicament.

Compared with other industries, cross-border business is a field that I am more familiar with. Although there are many factors that affect whether a store can be successful, the most important thing is my own efforts and dedication. If I have not achieved much success in a familiar field, I will imagine that I can make a lot of money after coming to an unfamiliar industry. This is actually unrealistic. According to my own advantages, I can often achieve more results by deepening my practice in one industry.

Unlike many people who only realize the benefits of cross-border e-commerce after leaving, a group of laymen came here because of its reputation and took the initiative to join Amazon. Some of them were originally engaged in the painting industry, some were originally Internet UI designers, and some were originally civil servants... These people switched to Amazon with zero experience, and after getting familiar with the industry, they believed that the entire industry had great potential and would get better and better in the future. According to Xiao Liu (pseudonym), he started a domestic e-commerce business, but after one year of persistence, he still had no results, so he switched to cross-border e-commerce operations. Currently, sales performance continues to grow steadily, and he will consider going it alone next.

In cross-border e-commerce, some people are successful while others are frustrated.

According to the industry's "80/20 rule", only a few people can make big money, while most people can only make a little money or struggle to make ends meet. It is understood that it is common to see cash flow after starting a cross-border e-commerce business in about a year. The cross-border industry has a long investment return cycle, and many people will fall in the early investment period if they are not careful. They will not only fail to make money but also lose costs... From the perspective of workers alone, cross-border e-commerce often has only three options: management, entrepreneurship, and career change. "I want to resign but can't, I want to change careers but don't know what I can do" can be said to be the mental journey of many people.

Weibo blogger "Factory Manager in the Wind" believes that sellers now have many voices criticizing e-commerce platforms, whether it is Taobao, Pinduoduo, Amazon or Temu, almost all e-commerce platforms will be criticized by sellers, and the reasons for the criticism are various. In essence, it is because they are too competitive and it is too difficult to do business now. However, if practitioners do not work in the current industry, they have no better choice.

Because changing a platform means starting over again and learning everything again, the cost of changing careers can be said to be huge, which has caused conflicts and struggles among cross-border practitioners.

"I just quit my job a while ago, and now I don't know whether I should continue to work in this industry. It's really hard to break through Amazon now." In the eyes of a veteran operator, cross-border e-commerce seems to be going downhill in the past two years. The company's product sales have declined, and its own income has plummeted. This year can be called the most difficult year, especially account video verification, brands inexplicably abused and removed, shopping carts lost, etc. have emerged one after another. The first thing I do when I wake up every day is to check if the store is still there. I want to change my career, but apart from Amazon, I really can't think of what else I can do to make a living...

Xiao Zhou (pseudonym) started out working in the cross-border e-commerce industry. He left for a few years after he couldn’t continue working there. Two years ago, he chose this track again and wanted to give it a try, but the result was not as good as he expected.

"After returning to the cross-border business, I chose the wrong segment, and it was very tiring to run a multi-SKU product line. Objectively speaking, both new and old products have indeed had peak order periods, but overall they are still in a loss-making state." Xiao Zhou estimates that the overall loss is as high as 10% of the gross profit. It's not that I didn't try hard during the operation, and I tried various adjustments but it still didn't work. If I can't make money in the next year, I will really leave this industry.

Xiao Wu (pseudonym) is in a similar situation. Before leaving cross-border e-commerce , he had accumulated 5 years of industry experience, with a gap of several years in between . His first stop after returning to cross-border e-commerce was a small cross-border e-commerce pioneering company. During the interview, the company described the product very beautifully, but after actually joining the company, he found that the product needed to be cleared out, and he had to re-select products for promotion. After the new product was launched, it had low exposure and few clicks. When the situation was bad, there were no orders for several days. Xiao Wu believes that this is not the most tiring thing. "Other people in the company are working on domestic e-commerce platforms, and I am the only one working on Amazon. At present, the company's investment and energy in cross-border e-commerce is not much. If the company does not support it in the future, the cross-border department will probably be laid off."

A large number of independent sellers are complaining as they have not yet made a profit in more than a year!

The phenomenon of entire group layoffs is very common in the cross-border circle.

A cross-border e-commerce operator said that from the internship period to now, he has changed 14 companies in the six years of work. He has been engaged in cross-border e-commerce operations since the fourth company. He was dismissed due to poor performance and also resigned voluntarily due to personal development issues. In addition, he has encountered the situation of "unemployment due to department disbanding by the company" more than once.

Another cross-border operator also said that from 2017 when he started working for Amazon in Shenzhen to now, he has brought down five companies, and almost every time the final outcome was the dissolution of the department.

Therefore, cross-border e-commerce, such as Amazon, which is called a ephemeral industry by some industry insiders , can be said to be a very "simple" business compared to other industries: you can easily spend a year or two from entering the industry to settling in Shenzhen Bay, or from entering the industry to changing industries! The former is not common, and the latter is too numerous to count.

Since the beginning of this year, many independent sellers have been complaining bitterly. After failing to make money, another group of people have joined the army of people who have to work again to pay off their debts.

"I owed hundreds of thousands of dollars when I started my business, so I had no choice but to go back to work for a cross-border e-commerce company." When Xiao Zheng (pseudonym) wanted to start his own business, he thought it would be impossible for him to go back to work in a company. However, he was disappointed. Now he spends all his money every month and has no idea when he will be able to pay off his debts.

In the eyes of many independent sellers, the most important goal of starting a business is just to "survive". They should do as much as they can, take steady steps, and keep sales growing steadily. The best situation is to keep the store running smoothly. This is because it is not easy to start a business alone. The investment period of cross-border e-commerce may be very long, but there are many pitfalls. People in the game need to be patient and cautious enough to endure loneliness.

Since the beginning of this year, traffic decline, brand association and other issues have become stumbling blocks for many independent sellers. "Frightened and scared, the motivation gradually disappears, and it will pass if you just hold on" can be said to be a true portrayal of their mental journey. In many cases, the reason that crushes cross-border people is often "not making money".

Feedback from sellers revealed that some people working alone do not earn as much as working for others, and some people have not made any profit for a year or even longer, and their monthly payments are negative. One seller who has been working alone for two years said that in the first year, he not only did not make any money, but also lost a lot of money. He made a small profit in the first half of this year, and used all the money he earned to pay off debts. Unfortunately, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse in the second half of the year. Enhanced video authentication caused an account to be registered, and it cost a lot of money to move warehouses and change labels. Another account suffered brand abuse, and the link brand was modified by someone. Every time a problem occurred, it was a double challenge in terms of funds and psychology, and the strong hope at the beginning of the business was also gradually eroded.

"I have worked almost in vain so far this year," another Amazon seller also summarized the troubles of this year: sales began to decline after the Spring Festival, and in the middle of the year, I began to encounter account review issues, all links were unsaleable, and then I encountered trademark infringement issues. The high-traffic keywords were registered by competitors, and many links were deleted and left with infringement performance. In the second half of the year, the brand was removed and has not returned to date, and the shopping cart also disappeared inexplicably...

It can be said that entrepreneurial success requires mature conditions in all aspects, but failure only requires a very small point . Whether it is due to subjective or objective reasons, it will have a greater impact on the seller.

Is it very difficult to sell on Amazon? “Made in China and sold on Amazon” is still the norm

All these examples convey a signal to the outside world: cross-border e-commerce is very difficult! In particular, product selection is considered an insurmountable difficulty by cross-border people.

It has been observed that many sellers often make "mistakes" in judgment when selecting products at the front desk every day, especially when screening products on the new product list. For example, some products develop rapidly within a short period of time after being put on the shelves, with hundreds of comments on the listing and two to three thousand orders sold per month. Therefore, they think that this product is very easy to sell, and immediately start calculating how much profit this product can make in a month, and prepare to enter the market.

As a result, I realized that it was a deep pit. The product could not be promoted at all. Even though the advertising fee was as high as several hundred dollars a day, the product still sold at a loss. In the end, I ended up selling at a loss and then being eliminated!

An industry insider believes that Amazon product selection cannot only look at the surface data! Many Amazon sellers fail in product selection because they have preconceived ideas and only look at the surface data, but have never seriously considered the promotion strategy, promotion costs, return rate, etc. behind it!

A careful observation of such products reveals that, first of all, the sellers may have done something illegal to have so many reviews and sales. Under normal circumstances, the review rate for new products is not high.

In addition, the entire advertising layout of such products is also very tricky. The daily advertising budget is not small, and the advertising bid is naturally high. Such heavy investment in advertising is basically unbearable for many small sellers with limited funds!

Therefore, overall, many sellers fail in product selection because they only see the surface data of the impressive sales of new products, but ignore the logic behind the successful promotion of these products. If they do not correct this and enter the market blindly with confidence, they will only have the desire to make a hit product but not the fate of a hit product.

The first goal of small and medium-sized sellers is to survive! In detail, according to their own financial budget and operational capabilities, they should find a market segment that suits them, dig deep into the market segment, and make full use of the market segment traffic. After making money, they can then consider doing other market segments and expanding the scale of the company.

In summary, it is true that cross-border e-commerce is difficult, but it is easier to do than other industries. Despite the constant complaints from cross-border sellers, a group of sellers are still making a fortune in silence. The revenue and net profit of many listed companies have both grown against the trend this year.

In the first three quarters of this year, Yibai Networks expects to achieve operating income of RMB 470,000.00 million to RMB 480,000.00 million, and net profit of RMB 375,000.00 million to RMB 395,000.00 million, with a gratifying growth trend. According to institutional forecasts, the average net profit of Zhiou Technology in 2023 will be RMB 394 million, a year-on-year increase of 57.45%; the average net profit of Anker Innovation in 2023 will be RMB 1.535 billion, a year-on-year increase of 34.33%; the average net profit of Lechuang in 2023 will be RMB 488 million, a year-on-year increase of 123.28%; the average net profit of Giant Star Technology in 2023 will be RMB 1.785 billion, a year-on-year increase of 25.73%...

Comparing multiple cross-border platforms, sales channels such as TikTok, independent sites, and Wish are flooded with a large number of Chinese sellers, and Amazon is still the best place for Chinese sellers to make money.

Taking the still popular Temu platform as an example, the factory manager believes that the reason why there are still so many sellers on the notorious Temu platform is because it is indeed profitable. Product selection is an important point in doing Temu well. If the seller chooses a product that no one else has made, he will have greater pricing power.

Temu and Amazon are similar in this respect , but different from Amazon in that the life cycle of hot products on the Temu platform is relatively short. According to feedback from Temu sellers, many hot-selling products are no longer approved for price review, and the time period for hot-selling products of many common goods can be said to be very short . Now Temu is more suitable for products with large quantity, low price and high demand, while Amazon is more friendly to sellers, and old links can live a more prosperous life.

"Amazon is an e-commerce platform for brands and a large number of sellers, while Temu is a cross-border platform that sells goods and has a supply chain." This view has been recognized by many people. Many cross-border e-commerce companies are just trying Temu and have not spent too much energy to set up a dedicated operation team. Some companies even let human resources take over Temu, but have invested a lot in the Amazon platform. This shows how much Chinese sellers like Amazon.

According to Marketplace Pulse, most sellers on the US Amazon marketplace are either US-based or Chinese businesses (with a relatively small presence in other countries ). 48% of the top third-party sellers on the Amazon platform are US businesses , a record low market share . Chinese sellers have been increasing their market share on Amazon for years.

During the 2020 epidemic , due to factors such as blockades, supply chain issues, Amazon FBA inventory restrictions , and platform bans , Chinese sellers temporarily "lost", and American sellers took advantage of the situation to expand their market share. However, this trend stopped in March 2022, and Chinese sellers slowly regained their lost market share in the US market and set new highs in recent months.

It can be found that Chinese sellers still perform well on Amazon, because almost all sellers use Amazon Logistics ( FBA) to store and distribute inventory, making their products eligible for Prime. Although e-commerce platforms such as Temu and TikTok have grabbed US market share to a certain extent and provided a new way out for cross-border sellers, Chinese sellers still prefer Amazon very much, and Amazon's GMV is still the largest. Therefore, "Made in China, sold by Amazon" is still the norm.

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