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The Trump assassination attempt, Biden's withdrawal from the election, Harris's succession, and Musk's departure... The 2024 US election, which is said to be the most stalemate in recent years, has gone through many ups and downs and dramatic plots, and finally came to an end on November 6th - Trump secured the victory in the election. However, after the election, the chain reaction it generated continues to affect the e-commerce industry. From the sales situation in the industry, while a group of sellers are excited about the "explosive orders for Trump peripherals", many sellers are also stuck in the quagmire of "sales diving". It has been several days since the results of the US election were released, but the peak season order volume that many sellers had been looking forward to has not yet resumed growth. Since November 6, many US sellers on the Amazon forum have said that their sales have dropped significantly: “The sales drop on Election Day was huge and has not recovered to this day.” "Sales have dropped 60-70% in the past five days." "It's hard to imagine this is the market in November." Many sellers mentioned that the advertising investment was gone forever, and it was not surprising that ACOS soared to over 100% . Generally speaking, due to the significant increase in orders in the same period of previous years, November is often regarded as an important period of peak season by Amazon sellers. However, due to the impact of the US election this year, it seems that only Amazon sellers selling "Trump peripherals" and a small number of categories have made a lot of money, while many other sellers are still waiting for orders . The reasons for this situation are generally believed to be the following two aspects: On the one hand, although the election results have been settled, the American public's attention and discussion on the election has not decreased , and the shift in local consumer attention has had a certain impact on the sales data of the e-commerce market. According to foreign media reports, on November 9, demonstrations broke out in many parts of the United States over the election results. On the other hand, it is rumored that Amazon's Black Friday may be held at the end of November. According to the sales trend in previous years, consumers tend to wait and see rather than place orders directly before the big promotion . At the same time, some sellers admitted that Temu, TikTok Shop and others have already started the Black Friday promotion . Under multiple sieges, part of Amazon's market share is being eroded. It is worth mentioning that according to Toolbox Marketing's 2024 Christmas Shopping Trends Survey, nearly 60% of consumers plan to start shopping before December. However, from the current situation, sellers selling Christmas products are facing multiple challenges in November. Not only has sales declined sharply, but due to Amazon warehouse overflow, some sellers' Christmas products have not even been put into storage yet. According to industry sources, facing the continuous decline in orders, many sellers are currently cutting back and reducing expenses. In addition, the peak season storage fees that Amazon began to charge a few days ago are also sharpening the knife towards profits. It is learned that recently, Amazon began to deduct storage fees for the peak season in October , which caused a lot of sellers to wail: "The sky is falling. Amazon's peak season storage fees are so painful that the balance has gone directly into negative territory." "The volume of orders during the off-season, the charges during the peak season, plus the delayed settlement, Amazon is suffering this month." "When I checked the store balance today, I found it was so much less all of a sudden. It turned out that the three times storage fee had started to be deducted." "I immediately checked the storage fees of other stores and found that they charged me nearly $20,000 in total. I was immediately upset." According to feedback from sellers, the peak season storage fees charged by Amazon range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars . After the deduction of this fee, many sellers' balances were cleared or even turned negative . Many sellers complained that they "owed money to Amazon" before they had time to experience the peak season orders. A senior seller said bluntly: Due to the previous sluggish orders, many sellers already had a large backlog of inventory, and the peak season storage fees that Amazon began to charge this month were undoubtedly a critical blow to those sellers who neglected to manage their products. According to Amazon's policy, the platform's storage fees usually vary by product size and time of year. During the peak sales season from October to December, Amazon's storage fees are usually about three times that of January to September. The fee schedule is as follows:- From January to September each year: The monthly storage fee for standard-sized products is $0.75 per cubic foot, and the monthly storage fee for oversized products is $0.48 per cubic foot;
- From October to December each year, the monthly storage fee for standard-size products is $2.40 per cubic foot, and the monthly storage fee for oversized products is $1.20 per cubic foot.
Since Amazon's peak season storage fee cycle has not yet ended, we would like to remind all sellers to optimize their inventory as soon as possible to avoid being charged high peak season storage fees again in the next two months. Have you also been charged high peak season storage fees? Welcome to discuss in the comments section~
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