Amazon Black Friday ended in a "tragic" way! Sellers: I really can't roll with it anymore

I believe there is no need to say much about what Black Friday means to people who cross borders. However, in recent years, the battle line of Black Friday has been gradually lengthened, and this year is even worse. However, this is not a reflection of high sales, but that "there is really no money to be made". They can only rely on lengthening the battle line to increase sales, but the results are still unsatisfactory.

This year's Black Friday shopping spree lasted 13 days, the longest period in history.

Although consumers performed well this year, the situation for sellers does not seem as optimistic as the data shows. Many sellers have begun to complain: "The peak season is not busy" and "It's the most difficult year."

According to data provided by Adobe Inc on Saturday, Black Friday sales in the United States set a new record again, with online sales alone reaching nearly $12.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.7%. Clothing, beauty products and consumer electronics were the main popular categories.

However, sales volume does not represent profit. According to feedback from most sellers, although store sales did increase slightly during Black Friday, the overall profit was not much.

A seller who mainly sells lamps and tools said that his Amazon sales data in November was very bleak, with orders not as good as in previous years. Sales in November fell by 36%, and gross profit was also terrible!

Another toy seller in Shenzhen revealed that he and his friends were facing a dilemma: if they did not offer discounts, there would be no orders; and once discounts were offered, profits would be greatly reduced. Therefore, although sales surged during Black Friday, after careful calculation, it was found that the actual profit was actually negative.

It is understood that some sellers saw an explosive growth in orders on Black Friday, but their profit levels were extremely low, and some even suffered losses.

“Sales have doubled or tripled, but we are still losing money. If we don’t participate in the event, we will be squeezed out. We are caught in a dilemma.

"Advertising expenses have increased, but orders have not increased, and the goods are not on the shelves. There is no inventory left."

"Sales are really bad this year. So many products can't be sold."

"It feels like the most popular Black Friday in Japan, orders have increased tenfold, I didn't expect it to be so high, but the profit is so low"

"For small categories ranked outside the top 300 or 400, the order volume has not changed, and the prices of competing products have dropped sharply. There are sales but no profits."

"Sales volume is about twice the usual amount, but profits have been greatly reduced. Comparing the data for the whole year, only the Member Day in July saw a significant increase in sales and profits."

However, there are some exceptions. On Black Friday, some sellers also saw an explosive growth in orders.

"The top 50 products in its subcategory are all sold out, with orders 10 times the usual amount, but the stock is running low, and most of the stock is in 'reserved status'. It feels like it won't last the entire Black Friday online shopping season."

"This year is magical. Products that usually sell average are suddenly selling very well. We can't sell enough and it's too late to restock. We can only watch them run out of stock." Another seller lamented.

Although some Amazon sellers reported an increase in orders and sales, the situation is: sales volume increased, but profits decreased.

Industry insiders analyzed that the main reason why the number of orders increased but the profit did not increase was the low price internal volume, which was even lower than in previous years! It is reported that the average discount during Black Friday was 20%-40%, and popular categories such as home appliances were even as high as 50%. Although it attracted a large number of consumers, the large discounts squeezed the profit margins of merchants.

During this year's Black Friday, many sellers said that they would not make any profit if they offered discounts, and that they were afraid of no orders if they did not offer discounts, which became the main theme of sales. At the same time, they believe that the situation next year may be even worse, and internal competition will become more and more serious!

In addition, the factors that caused the Black Friday upset also include the following three aspects:

1. Multiple e-commerce platforms have emerged, and the timeline of the Black Friday online promotion has been extended:

This year, almost all e-commerce platforms (Amazon, Walmart, SHEIN, Temu, TikTok shop) have extended the duration of the Black Friday online promotion.

Amazon: November 21st - December 2nd, a total of 12 days

Temu: October 20th - December 5th, 47 days, up to 90% discount

Walmart: November 11th - early December, up to 50% off

TikTok Shop: November 14th - December 17th, great discounts

Amazon Low Price Store even offers 50% off!

In the past, Black Friday promotions were basically focused on the Amazon platform. Now, these platforms have joined in to share the market traffic, and they all provide consumers with a large number of promotions, resulting in the diversion of traffic from the Amazon platform.

2. Consumers’ price sensitivity increases, and consumption downgrades

Amid inflationary pressure and rising living costs, consumers are more sensitive to prices, but their demands for quality are rising instead of falling.

Consumers are more looking forward to seeing real price discounts and promotions, rather than just regular price fluctuations. During Black Friday, a consumer posted a video on Tiktok saying that Amazon's promotional prices were higher than usual.

At the same time, the Federal Reserve also confirmed the trend of consumption downgrade in its Beige Book in July, saying that retail discount products are emerging in almost every region of the United States, and price-sensitive consumers are either buying only necessities, or buying lower-quality products, or buying fewer products, while others are shopping around for the best prices.

3. System BUG + logistics delay and warehouse explosion

Platform system issues: Multiple backend pages on multiple Amazon sites cannot be opened, including Amazon shipments, advertising, and even customer service support. Many functions are unusable, and some sellers cannot even open in-site messages.

Some sellers have received news that due to suspected fraud risks, the relevant departments have blocked some Amazon seller platform addresses, affecting some users' inability to log in to the platform. Other news said that some Ps were blocked because they were linked to fraudulent websites. The network problem has been resolved, but it has brought certain impacts to the seller's operations.

Warehouse overflow problem: During Black Friday, due to the surge in orders, logistics pressure was huge. In recent months, Amazon has frequently experienced warehouse overflow, logistics congestion, and delivery delays. Many warehouses are facing problems such as difficulty in making appointments, difficulty in delivering goods to warehouses, and slow stocking. Some warehouses have even suspended appointments. Among them, DTM2, HAJ1, STR1, LEJ1, LEJ3, and DUS2 have experienced more serious warehouse overflows.

According to data, the proportion of orders cancelled due to logistics delays during Black Friday was as high as 8%, which also seriously affected consumers' shopping experience.

From the current perspective, there have indeed been many significant changes in the peak season promotions in the second half of the year.

If you pay close attention, you will find that in recent years, not only Black Friday, but also sales on popular sales days such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas have become increasingly flat.

As a seller, you cannot rely solely on traditional large-scale promotional activities such as Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday to achieve growth in orders. Instead, you need to find new growth points, such as optimizing product portfolios, innovating marketing methods, improving user experience, establishing brand differentiation, etc., to achieve long-term and stable growth.