Order volume drops by 40%! Amazon sellers can’t sit still

Since last week, some Amazon sellers have entered a new round of order decline, with the order volume hitting the bottom on Wednesday. Sellers analyzed that one important reason is that after Amazon adjusted the review display, the inherent review quantity advantage of old products disappeared, and the new products have shown an obvious upward trend in the past two weeks, which has taken away a large number of orders.

Amazon has been making adjustments recently. Some sellers said that every time the platform makes an adjustment, their order volume will drop, just like being hit by a precision attack. Not only that, a new round of number scanning has appeared on Amazon, and sellers cannot be careless.

The order volume of many sellers has dropped, and new products are beginning to grab the market

In August, the overall order performance on Amazon was not amazing. Sales began to decline last week and reached a peak yesterday. Sellers have many feedbacks:

"My sales have been terrible since the beginning of this week, and I can't afford to spend on advertising."

“Sales are usually good on Wednesdays, but not today.”

"I don't know why it's so bad today, or it's been so bad in the past two weeks, not as good as in the middle of the month."

"My orders were very good on Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday I got a slap in the face. I give up."

Some sellers stated that sales after the 20th dropped by 40% compared to the previous month, which was a very poor performance. Even so, advertising expenses remained unchanged.

Not only the US site, but also the European site has synchronized the decline in orders. One seller has seen a continuous decline in orders in recent days, and even began to wonder if Europeans have uninstalled Amazon; there are also sellers whose sales were good in the past two days, but on Wednesday, the order volume dropped by 20%-30%.

Previously, whenever orders dropped, sellers would look for clues from the holidays in the destination market, but this time it didn’t work. Some sellers believed that Temu, Tik Tok, etc. distracted consumers’ attention, but according to feedback from Temu sellers, the order volume of many peers has also declined in recent days, with an average drop of about 1/3.

So what is the problem with the decline in orders? One seller believes that this may be related to the changes in the review display on the Amazon front desk. He said that sales had previously fluctuated, but in the past week, it seemed to have plummeted. The main reason was that the old products could not be stable, and the new products did not improve much and failed to attract more traffic.

"The PC side directly displays the rating and number of reviews, while the APP side sometimes displays the rating and number of reviews, and sometimes displays the expanded rating without the number of reviews. The result is that old products lose their advantages. A 4.3-star link that is several years old may not be able to outperform a 5-star link that is 1-2 months old when running an ad."

This topic has sparked discussion on Tell All, and many sellers agree with this view.

One seller clearly felt that the traffic of his new product with 20 reviews and 4.9 stars increased significantly after the revision. "The upward trend of new products has been quite obvious recently. It is not so important to have more than a certain number of reviews. The main picture, price and title are more important." said a seller.

As new products start to gain momentum, old products are in a state of declining sales. "Our old products used to rank quite stable, but they have dropped five or six places in the past week or two, and sales have been declining. One reason is that the search ratings show that old products have lost their advantages and have been diverted to other sellers' products. Another reason is that competitors are offering 30% off during promotions, and the prices are getting lower and lower."

After Amazon’s review reform, sellers can no longer rest on their laurels. They need to develop innovative products and continuously update them to attract new customers.

Amazon's new wave of number sweeps

Recently, Amazon has been making continuous adjustments, which is overwhelming.

A few days ago, Amazon launched a new round of account scanning, and many sellers were affected. The backend showed that "account has been closed" and they could not log in because of the abuse of Amazon services.

Amazon specifically said in the email: We have suspended your Amazon account. Why did this happen? We took this action because Amazon has information indicating that you may have provided Amazon with inaccurate information or violated the platform's terms and policies when using your Amazon account. This decision was made through a combination of automation and expert manual review.

Sellers analyzed that this was a new type of account scanning, and many of the accounts scanned were newly registered stores. One seller said that his new store had not yet shipped and was just closed after the brand registration was successfully completed. However, in the past two days, a number of blocked accounts have been unblocked and gradually returned to normal.

Another situation where the account was scanned was not so easy. Amazon directly deactivated the account of the relevant seller and deleted the products, requiring it to process the outstanding orders. The platform said that it would conduct a separate investigation to evaluate the seller's account. If the seller is found to have engaged in deceptive, fraudulent or illegal activities, or abused the system or repeatedly violated the platform's policies to protect customers and sales partners, some or all funds in the account may be withheld.

Amazon's penalties are so severe because it is unable to verify the information associated with the seller's account or has not received new information about the seller's products or sales history. Some sellers appealed and were convicted of fraud.

"I've had two accounts this year, and I didn't do anything and shipped products normally, but I was scanned for no apparent reason," one seller couldn't help but complain. Another seller said that the platform had recently implemented a new wave of account scanning, and those who were operating normally and not evaluated might be scanned, and this happened to many people.

In the sellers' view, after the implementation of the U.S. Consumer Notification Act this year, the review of various types of accounts has become increasingly strict, the survival rate of purchased accounts has dropped sharply, and the difficulty of normal operation of new accounts has also increased sharply.

Some sellers suggested that after completing the registration of a new account and completing the video authentication, it is best to ship and place orders as soon as possible. If the brand has not been registered yet, you can apply for a whitelist first, and then arrange for shipment and placement of orders. If you do not place orders within 3 months, you may be directly downgraded to an individual seller. If you want to upgrade to a professional seller, you will encounter video authentication.

Policies are changing, the correct solution is to adjust the European commission algorithm

In addition to account security, continuous policy adjustments also make sellers nervous.

This Tuesday, Amazon's Small and Light program will be discontinued on its US site, and its European site will follow suit at the end of next month, when it will be replaced by Amazon's logistics rates for low-priced goods.

After the new rate standard came into effect, most sellers faced rising costs. Goods priced below $10 can enjoy lower delivery fees, while goods priced above $10 will be charged a lot more, which means that with comparable profits, sellers are likely to lower prices to win more orders.

"The original delivery fee of $2.66 for light and small items has suddenly increased to $3.86, so should I choose to increase the price by $1-2 and pass it on to consumers, or should I choose to reduce the price to $9.99 as charity and kill my peers?"

Items priced around $10 will either be raised by one or two dollars to maintain profits, or directly raised to $9.99. However, orders will inevitably drop after the price increase, so a large number of items priced at $9.99 are expected to emerge in the future.

A few sellers choose to raise prices and pass on the cost to customers, but if the product does not have a unique selling point, it is hard to say whether buyers will buy it. At present, many sellers are still waiting and watching, and need to refer to the decisions of their peers.

Europe's adjustment of commission algorithms has also caused sellers to worry about costs.

Last week, sellers on the European site received a notice of a commission algorithm adjustment. The email clearly shows that starting from October 24 this year, Amazon will calculate commission fees based on the quote provided, rather than based on the actual purchase price paid by the customer. This change will apply to all transactions where Amazon calculates taxes.

From the literal meaning, it seems that commissions will also be charged for product promotions and discounts, and sellers directly called Amazon too cruel. Someone asked the customer service whether commissions would be charged for promotions, and the half-informed customer service replied: Even if you have a promotion, the commission is calculated based on the actual price of the product.

The sellers collectively broke down and wailed, believing that the prospects for the European site were bleak and would become even more difficult in the future.

Later, some sellers discovered that this was not Amazon’s original intention and there might be a translation error. As the complaints grew louder, Amazon officially released a manuscript to explain the change in the commission algorithm for the European site, and emphasized that “it does not involve transactions involving promotional activities.”

That is, the change applies to all transactions that calculate value-added tax (VAT), excluding sales directly to Amazon or transactions involving promotional activities, such as flash sales, coupons , discounts, etc., which still calculate commissions based on the purchase price. This has given everyone a sigh of relief.

Amazon is constantly adjusting, and a small move can cause a stir among sellers. A large number of sellers are parasitic on Amazon, and the latter's every move will have a butterfly effect. What sellers need to do is to take a break when the platform is in trouble, and then take advantage of the favorable wind.