The game of account suspension is on the rise again! The popular seller Zebao is "claiming" 30 million from Amazon!

In 2023, the global economy will remain in an "unbalanced phase" marked by unfavorable economic growth and inflation.

In this cyclical weak phase, although cross-border sellers are experiencing their darkest moments, they have never lost hope of breaking through sales growth. To dispel the chill, most sellers are looking for opportunities to break through, either by opening up new markets and new channels, or by using new technologies to help the development of cross-border business...

Recently, perhaps in order to clear away the burden of past events and devote all their efforts to the development of their companies, several big sellers have filed major lawsuits.

It is learned that on February 16, Shenzhen Damaizebao's parent company Xinghui Holdings issued an announcement on the cumulative litigation and arbitration status and litigation progress , disclosing a number of lawsuits and arbitration matters involving the company, with a total amount involved of approximately RMB 46.7968 million.

What cross-border sellers are most concerned about is the arbitration case related to Amazon.

According to the announcement, in October 2022, Sunvalleytek International, Inc., a US subsidiary of Zebo, initiated arbitration against Amazon as an applicant. The case was caused by account freezing. The amount involved was as high as approximately US$5.258 million (equivalent to approximately RMB 36.42 million on the day of publication) , accounting for 79.87% of the total amount involved.

▲ The picture comes from the announcement of Xinghui Shares

It is learned that in 2021, Amazon's account ban wave swept across the country, and a large number of sellers were severely damaged by it. To this day, there are still many big sellers who are playing games with Amazon to recover some of their losses, and Zebao is one of them.

In June 2021, foreign media reported that Sunvalleytek International, a subsidiary of Zebao, had placed gift cards. Amazon determined that Zebao had violated the platform's operating rules, removed its products from the shelves, and closed a large number of its accounts, causing it to suffer heavy losses.

For this reason, Zebao filed an objection in this arbitration case, stating that Amazon's arbitrary closure of supplier accounts violated the supplier terms and other agreements.

Currently, the case is being accepted by the American Arbitration Association and is still in the trial stage. It remains unknown whether Zebao can recover some of its losses.

It is understood that since last year, many sellers whose accounts were blocked have launched a counterattack. During this period, many big sellers have successfully won the lawsuit and recovered the frozen funds from Amazon . However, rationally speaking, it is difficult to estimate the time and cost to negotiate with Amazon over the account blocking incident. Compared with pursuing past losses, most sellers will still focus on future sales growth.

Therefore, we would like to remind all sellers that, based on past experience, the only way for sellers to firmly grasp the initiative in sales is to operate in compliance with regulations.

It is worth noting that in addition to Zebao, the lawsuit involving another major seller, Jihong Shares, also recently caused heated discussions in the cross-border circle.

It is learned that on February 18, Xiamen Damai Jihong Co., Ltd. issued an announcement on major litigation, disclosing the latest progress in the equity transfer contract dispute between Jihong Co., Ltd. and Xiamen Feiyasa Import and Export Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Feiyasa").

▲ The picture comes from Jihong Shares Announcement

According to the announcement, on November 6, 2020, Jihong Co., Ltd. and Fiyasa signed the "Share Transfer Agreement" regarding Longyu Star, a subsidiary of Jihong Co., Ltd., stipulating that Jihong Co., Ltd. will transfer its 90% equity in Longyu Star to Fiyasa for RMB 172 million , and the equity transfer payment will be paid in three installments.

On December 28, 2020, Jihong Shares changed the registration of 90% of its shares in Longyu Star to the name of the defendant as agreed. According to the agreement, Feiyasha should pay all three equity transfer payments before December 31, 2021. However, as of the date of the announcement, Feiyasha has only paid the first and second equity transfer payments, and still owes Jihong Shares 89.082 million yuan in equity transfer payments.

To this end, Jihong Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit against Fiyasa, demanding that she pay the company 89.082 million yuan in equity transfer funds and 267,200 yuan in late payment penalties (a total of 89.3492 million yuan) , and bear all litigation costs in this case.

At present, the case has been accepted by the Haicang District People's Court of Xiamen City on February 17, 2023.

  ▲ The picture comes from Jihong Shares Announcement

As soon as the news was released, it attracted the attention of many cross-border people due to the huge amount involved. Some investors even asked: If the more than 80 million yuan of equity transfer funds are fully accounted for, will the company's performance turn from profit to loss?

Jihong shares also responded to this: there is uncertainty as to whether the equity transfer funds can be recovered, the time of recovery and the amount of recovery. If all the equity transfer funds are fully accounted for, the company's performance this year will not suffer a loss.

From the above, it can be seen that Jihong Co., Ltd.'s profit in 2022 is more than the equity transfer amount of 89.082 million yuan.

According to Jihong Co., Ltd.'s third-quarter 2022 financial report, the company achieved operating income of 3.936 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2022 , an increase of 2.33% over the same period last year, and achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 199 million yuan , a decrease of 19.82% over the same period last year, and the decline continued to narrow.

According to its financial report, Jihong shares' profits mostly come from cross-border e-commerce business. Recently, in order to help improve business operation efficiency, Jihong shares also applied the popular AI technology - ChatGPT to artificial intelligence product selection, advertising material/advertising language intelligent output, advertising intelligent delivery, customer service intelligent response and other aspects in cross-border e-commerce business.

As Zhu Xi said: If you cannot remember the book, you can remember it by reading it carefully; if you do not understand the meaning, you can understand it by thinking carefully; but if you do not have a goal, you will have no place to focus.

In the future, whether Jihong's cross-border e-commerce business can be further improved through this is still unclear. What is certain is that if cross-border sellers want to survive the turning point of industry transformation and shock, they can only rely on hard work.

What do you think about this? Welcome to discuss in the comment area~