Orders plummeted by 40%, and factories celebrated the New Year in advance! Sellers: Prepare 5 months of goods

It is learned that on December 3, Zhejiang launched the "Thousands of Groups and Tens of Thousands of Enterprises Expand Markets and Grab Orders Action" . In this action, the Provincial Department of Commerce, together with the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office and other units, took the lead in organizing the first provincial-level overseas business delegation organized in Zhejiang since the epidemic. The first stop was the "European Tour", with France and Germany as the destinations. In addition, foreign trade companies in Jiangsu, Sichuan and other places also chartered flights to Europe to carry out economic and trade promotion activities and grab overseas orders.

Now is the traditional peak season at the end of the year, holiday promotions collide with the World Cup feast, and the double buff has a strong boosting effect. Cross-border sellers are in a tense battle for orders. However, on the other hand, with the end of Black Friday, after a short sales peak, sellers are inevitably facing some aftereffects of the big promotion.

Generally speaking, the dazzling array of promotional activities overdraws the consumption desire of Europeans and Americans in advance, and orders may decline to a certain extent in a short period of time after the big promotion. However, sellers have proven that the sudden decline in orders after the big promotion may also be due to a sudden bug in the system.

It is learned that on the morning of December 7, local time, Amazon's payment system malfunctioned, and more than 12,000 users were unable to check out smoothly. For this reason, a seller reported that when he checked the backend at around 10 o'clock last night, he found that there was an abnormality in the order.

▲ The picture comes from Weibo

It is reported that consumers received a message when paying for the order: We encountered a problem when processing your request. But please rest assured that we are resolving this issue as soon as possible. If you want to purchase, please check your account to make sure the order has been placed.

Because the payment system bug affected buyers' checkout, the sales of some sellers were also affected to a certain extent. The CEO of Curist, an online drug seller, said that during the time when the checkout page was wrong, the sales of his store dropped sharply. At 9 a.m. on Wednesday, the number of orders dropped by 95% compared with the time period on Tuesday. By 10 a.m., the number of orders had decreased by 34%.

One seller joked: "Amazon successfully helped me find the reason why I didn't get any orders." Fortunately, the system failure has been completely resolved and the impact has not expanded further.

Of course, the aftermath of the big promotion is not just system bugs and reduced sales. A considerable number of sellers are caught in a tug-of-war over returns.

According to the latest forecast by eMarket, the value of returned merchandise by online shoppers in the United States this year will reach $279.03 billion, an increase of 8.4% from last year, more than double the total value of returns of $118.41 billion in 2019.

Although American consumers set new records for online spending on Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday this year, returns problems also followed impulse purchases.

According to a survey by Appriss Retail and Incisiv, the return rate of online shopping in the United States is 3 to 4 times that of physical stores, and in 2022, more than 90% (91%) of US retailers will see their return rate grow faster than their revenue. On average, the online return cost for sellers is 21% of the value of each order.

The sudden increase in return rates after the big promotion not only erodes the seller's profits, but also has a negative impact on the store's performance evaluation. In addition, how to clean up these returned goods is also another difficult problem facing sellers.

However, while some people are worried about clearing returns, others are anxious about stocking issues.

Supply chain research firm Project44 said that since the end of summer 2022, the volume of TEUs shipped from China to the United States has fallen sharply, with the total volume of shipping containers falling 21% between August and November. Although it is the end of the year shipping season, empty containers are piled up at important domestic ports such as Guangzhou, Yantian and Shekou.

It is reported that the Ocean Alliance and THE Alliance have cut their capacity by 40% to 50%. Currently, the overall business volume and order flow in Asia continue to be sluggish, and there is almost no upward momentum before the Lunar New Year.

The reason behind the cooling of the container shipping market is essentially due to the weak foreign trade demand.

According to the latest report from CNBC, due to the collapse in demand, US orders have dropped by 40%. Under this circumstance, Chinese factories may stop production two weeks earlier than usual for the upcoming Spring Festival holiday.

One seller lamented that 2022 is coming to an end, and it feels like many factories are on the verge of bankruptcy. Some factory workers complained that they wanted to work overtime at the end of the year to save up some wages, but they didn't expect that they couldn't get enough orders every day, and they didn't even have to work on weekends. The boss was also worried during the meeting, and the remaining orders were already stretched.

"My relatives in my hometown run a factory that ships frozen goods overseas. Since there were no orders, they also started the Spring Festival holiday yesterday."

"My previous factory had no orders in September, and we couldn't pay our employees' salaries, which were in arrears. We also delayed paying social security for three months, and many nearby factories closed down."

"We have said in the meeting that many people can't hold on and may have to take holidays earlier than in previous years, or even go bankrupt. In any case, the amount of New Year's goods prepared is really far less than last year. Sellers have no business, factories have no business, logistics have no business..."

In the 2022 cross-border market, where the wind has receded and rationality has returned, the plight of the cross-border industry has radiated to the supply side behind it. On the one hand, the sluggish operation of domestic cross-border merchants has directly affected the sharp drop in orders and payment collection of foreign trade factories. On the other hand, due to multiple factors such as the recovery of overseas manufacturing and over-purchase last year, domestic factories have frequently encountered large-scale cancellations and delays of European and American orders since this year, and the volume of export orders has dropped sharply.

For this reason, since mid-year, some factories have been closing down early, suspending work and production, and even some old large factories have collapsed due to being in desperate situations.

Faced with the common phenomenon of factories closing early and resuming work late, many sellers are also anxious about stocking up. One seller said that the factory closed for a month in January, but the shipping time basically took three months. The current factory production capacity is difficult to produce sufficient goods in time, and coupled with Amazon's insufficient storage capacity, it is likely to face the risk of out-of-stock.

Some sellers are preparing for this: "It is recommended to directly stock up until April next year for the last order before the New Year. It is highly likely that most factories will not be able to start work on time this year, and the workers will not be able to return."

However, in order to prepare five months of supply in advance, it is necessary to ensure that the factory's production capacity meets production needs and to have sufficient financial support. In addition, once unsalable inventory appears, high storage fees will be required. Many sellers are caught in a dilemma.

As the Spring Festival approaches, what stocking plans have you made? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to share~