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Get the "2022 Cross-border E-commerce Annual Report" for free at the end of the article
In 2022, amid the global economic downturn, cross-border platforms are experiencing turmoil. "Reducing scale and increasing delivery fees" have become the key words for Amazon's business adjustments. Shopee has suffered consecutive losses and has strengthened its refined transformation. China's overseas e-commerce platforms Temu and TikTok Shop have successfully entered the US market. Alibaba Cross-border, AliExpress, and SHEIN have made a series of strategic adjustments to break through the growth bottleneck.
After surveying tens of thousands of cross-border practitioners, covering multiple aspects such as the market, platform, logistics, and financing, we finally completed the "2022 Cross-border E-commerce Annual Report". This article will bring you the third part of the report - the situation of cross-border platforms.
Chinese sellers regain market share In the past two years, affected by the wave of account bans and cost pressures, domestic Amazon sellers have "fled" Amazon and expanded into diversified operating channels such as Walmart and independent sites. The share of Chinese sellers on Amazon's US site was once surpassed by local American sellers. Marketplace Pulse research shows that in the second half of 2022, the sales share of Chinese sellers on Amazon's US site is at a historical high. Chinese sellers' Amazon market share is recovering , with Amazon's total sales volume and the proportion of top sellers on the US site returning to the level of November 2020.
▲ Image from Marketplace Pulse Unprecedented mass layoffs Amazon has not been profitable in the past few quarters due to weak consumer demand and rising operating costs. For this reason, Amazon announced on November 15, 2022 the launch of its largest layoff plan in history, and it is expected to lay off 10,000 employees , accounting for about 13% of its total US employees. In addition, Amazon may freeze corporate recruitment in its retail business until early 2023. On December 5, 2022, foreign media revealed that Amazon will lay off employees across the company, including distribution center employees, technicians and corporate executives, and the final scale of layoffs may expand to 20,000 people. As the high-growth bubble bursts, the aftereffects of Amazon's aggressive expansion during the pandemic are gradually showing. Amid internal concerns of overstocking and redundant inventory, as well as external concerns such as inflation and rising raw material costs, its Q3 performance fell short of market expectations. In order to counter the butterfly effect of slowing sales, Amazon is entering a cooling-off period for expansion, suspending recruitment and cutting operations. European and American sites have adjusted FBA logistics fees in multiple rounds - On January 18, 2022, Amazon US adjusted FBA fees including delivery rates, storage fees, inventory removal and disposal fees, etc.
- On April 28 , 2022 , Amazon US will impose a 5% fuel and inflation surcharge on top of the existing FBA charges, increasing the logistics fee for each item shipped from the FBA distribution center by 24 cents.
- On May 12 , 2022 , Amazon's European site officially imposed a 4.3% fuel and inflation surcharge, which means that the average delivery fee for each item in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain sites will increase by £0.10.
- On June 30 , 2022 , Amazon US raised its logistics remote delivery fees.
- On November 18 , 2022 , Amazon US announced adjustments to multiple fees including logistics distribution, warehousing, and small and light programs, which will take effect on January 17, 2023.
Storage capacity is in short supply during peak season In preparation for the peak season in the second half of 2022, the shortage of storage capacity has become a major pain point for sellers. Starting from January 1, 2022, Amazon officially lowered the IPI threshold to 400 points. However, since August, sellers have frequently experienced a high IPI index but their storage capacity has been drastically cut. The survey found that during the preparation process for major promotions such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, 59% of sellers had their inventory capacity cut by tens of thousands; 27% of sellers said that their inventory capacity had shrunk, but the reduction was not large; and only 14% of sellers had their inventory capacity "unscathed." The reasons for Amazon's inventory shortage can be traced back to, on the one hand, the overcapacity in the first half of the year led Amazon to sublease and reduce storage space on a large scale ; on the other hand, Amazon employees frequently went on strike and the pace of recruitment slowed down during the peak season, leading to a labor shortage .
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