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Turning to the cross-border memoirs, the ups and downs of the fate of cross-border sellers in recent years make people deeply realize that the cross-border e-commerce industry is at an unprecedented moment of change. In the face of the changing times, cross-border sellers must not only continuously improve their competitiveness, but also be wary of escalating platform policy challenges. Recently, another policy change by Amazon has caused headaches for countless European sellers. Amazon withheld sellers' funds, began returning them after complaints As mentioned in the article "Another Amazon policy change, a large number of sellers: going bankrupt?", hundreds of Amazon European sellers recently received a notice from Amazon: the release time after product delivery will be delayed to more than 7 days to ensure sufficient backup funds for returns or customer claims. It is reported that the new policy clearly stipulates that funds will be transferred to sellers one week after the order is delivered, which means that if delivery is delayed, sellers will have to wait longer to receive sales funds. As Bezos said: The core capability of a company lies in the free flow of cash flow. As an asset-heavy platform, Amazon is even more so. Its operation cannot be separated from sufficient financial support. The interruption of cash flow in any link may cause losses to the store and even lead to a break in the capital chain. Therefore, although Amazon stated that the policy change will only affect a small number of sellers, according to This is Money's estimates, 33,750 European companies will be affected by this policy change. After the policy was officially implemented, business feedback from sellers on the European site also confirmed the profound impact of the policy, which is by no means as light as Amazon claimed.
It is learned that since August 3, a large number of old European sellers registered before 2016 have reported that their funds on Amazon have been withheld, with the amount reaching hundreds of thousands of pounds. This has not only seriously affected business operations, but some sellers have even faced bankruptcy crisis: "We have £16,000 blocked by Amazon and this has seriously affected our business." “With £263,000 locked up, I can’t pay the VAT, restock and continue selling.” "I didn't even see the email notification before my funds were withheld because it was automatically sent to my spam folder." After that, Amazon received a large number of complaints from European sellers. After the news was reported by many authoritative British media, Amazon finally responded on August 12: it will postpone the implementation of the new policy of "temporary deductions for return claims" to January 2024. At present, some affected European sellers have received refunded funds from Amazon. ▲ The picture comes from the Amazon forum But even so, many sellers are unable to return to the business status before their funds were withheld. One seller said that he did receive a notice on Saturday saying that all his income has now been unfrozen, but the suspension of income has caused problems in his entire supply chain, which may take two weeks to resolve . Other sellers believe that this policy is unfair and Amazon has only delayed its implementation, but once it is implemented, it will still be risky for sellers . As of now, it is unclear whether Amazon will compensate sellers who have suffered losses due to the freezing of withdrawals, and it is also difficult to determine whether Amazon will take measures to mitigate the impact of this policy on sellers. We will continue to pay attention to subsequent developments. However, in addition to the unfavorable news that has come one after another, Amazon sellers have also received good news recently. Amazon eliminates dozens of its own brands, which may benefit third-party sellers
It is learned that according to foreign media reports, in order to avoid antitrust lawsuits, reduce costs and increase profits, Amazon is drastically reducing the number of its own-brand products. According to people familiar with the matter, Amazon will eliminate several of its own brands in the home category , such as Rivet and Stone & Beam, but Amazon Basics, which sells a series of home furnishings and technology accessories, will remain a key brand of the e-commerce giant. As soon as the news came out, it caused an uproar in the cross-border circle. Many sellers believe that Amazon's own brand withdrawal from some competitive markets is good news: “There are fewer brands grabbing exposure, which is a positive sign for third-party sellers.” “Just because some categories are not profitable on Amazon doesn’t mean sellers can’t do it. If you look at it positively, this can also be considered good news.” But more sellers said that Amazon's move had little impact on them: “Amazon has eliminated only marginal brands, which is meaningless.” "The products that were cut were all loss-making products, just to narrow the battle line and increase profits." As of now, Amazon has not clearly announced the exact number of brands that have been cut, but it is understood that this is not the first time Amazon has decided to abandon its own brand. In July 2022, Amazon drastically reduced the number of products under its own clothing brands, such as Lark & Ro, Daily Ritual, and Goodthreads, due to continued sluggish sales and increased EU regulation. Although some of these brands are still on the platform, reports revealed that after clearing the inventory, Amazon's own-brand clothing department will only have three major brands: Amazon Essentials, Amazon Collection, and Amazon Aware. In general, the reduction in the scale of Amazon's own-brand products does have the benefit of increasing product exposure and reducing competitive pressure for some third-party sellers , but increased product exposure also means an increase in advertising costs . Therefore, as product exposure continues to increase in the future, controlling advertising budgets may become the focus of sellers. What do you think of this? Welcome to discuss in the comments section~
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