In the past two years, the epidemic has driven the prosperity of online shopping. Amazon's former CEO Bezos led Amazon to a large-scale expansion, repairing warehouses, hiring new employees, etc. After the epidemic became normalized, consumers returned to offline stores, and the sequelae caused by blind expansion began to emerge.
It is learned that Amazon will release its second-quarter financial report on July 28 , but many industry insiders predict that Amazon's revenue this quarter is likely to hit a new low, and the year-on-year growth rate will be lower than 10% for the third time. Amazon had previously forecast second-quarter revenue of between $116 billion and $121 billion, up 3% to 7%. But Wall Street analysts have been cutting their earnings and sales forecasts for Amazon this quarter, next quarter and into 2023. As online revenue growth slows, Amazon is undergoing a "slimming" process to reduce costs and increase efficiency. In addition to reducing excess facilities and subletting excess warehouses, Amazon is also currently solving the problem of redundant personnel through natural attrition. In addition to Amazon, Shopify, another e-commerce giant, has also been undergoing a "major slimming down" recently. As the growth rate of online orders slows down, Shopify lays off nearly 1,000 employees! It is learned that on July 26, Shopify officially announced that it will lay off approximately 1,000 employees, accounting for 10% of its global workforce . Most of the laid-off positions are from recruitment, business support and sales departments. Cross-border navigation , like 13 ▲ Video account focuses on cross-border navigation After the notice was issued, Shopify's stock price closed down 14% , the biggest single-day drop since May 5. Its CEO Tobias Lütke admitted in the notice that the layoffs and team reductions were due to the company's misjudgment of consumer trends. After 2021, the internal pressure of the Amazon platform and the changes in the external traffic structure have led to a watershed in the traffic situation, which has led to a large-scale "migration" of traffic in the cross-border e-commerce industry, and independent sites and social e-commerce have begun to grow wildly. Among the companies that are benchmarking Amazon, Shopify, a store opening platform from Canada, is undoubtedly the biggest dark horse. In February of this year, MarketplacePulse data showed that after GMV exceeded US$54 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, Shopify's scale was almost close to 50% of Amazon's market , and the overall growth rate of Shopify sellers has far exceeded that of Amazon's third-party sellers. In such a prosperous situation, Lütke once said that the rapid growth of e-commerce sales driven by the epidemic would continue for 5 or even 10 years. But today, this prediction has not come true. Shopify's first quarter 2022 financial report data showed that Shopify's revenue increased by 21% year-on-year to US$ 1.2 billion , lower than the expected US$1.24 billion, and GMV increased by 16% year-on-year to US$43.2 billion, but lower than analysts' expectations of US$46.5 billion. "While growth continues, it has slowed significantly, and now Shopify must adjust," Lütke said in a blog post. It is understood that such a major change in Shopify's development direction is closely related to the huge impact on the entire e-commerce industry. Rising interest rates, supply chain shortages, continued high inflation, and the return of shopping models to offline are all cooling down the once hot technology industry. According to statistics from technology media Crunchbase, as of late July, more than 30,000 employees from nearly 150 technology companies in the United States have been laid off in this round of layoffs. So far, 349 startups across the United States have laid off more than 53,000 people . As the industry cools down, Chinese cross-border companies are also unable to escape the wave of layoffs. A wave of layoffs swept the cross-border circle, and sedimentation and deep cultivation became the new trend! With the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, changes in global consumption patterns and the rapid recovery of domestic productivity, cross-border e-commerce became all the rage, and many cross-border start-ups emerged like mushrooms after a rain. However, as we enter 2021, with the weakening of the boosting effect of the epidemic and the continued shocks of varying sizes such as account blocking and price wars , the extent of profit shrinkage in the entire cross-border industry seems to be expanding. The cross-border recruitment market has even ushered in a wave of "late spring cold", and many cross-border companies have begun to reduce recruitment and layoffs, and scale back business expansion plans. In addition to last year's top sellers such as Zebao and Youkeshu reducing the number of employees in order to reduce management costs, many small and medium-sized cross-border companies have also been caught up in the cross-border layoffs this year. Survey data shows that in the first half of 2022, more than 50% of the companies where cross-border sellers work have experienced layoffs. In 2022, due to the tightening of platform supervision, the international economic situation, the supply chain and other unstable factors, a wave of layoffs swept across the cross-border e-commerce industry, and it is at the bottom of the industry cycle. During the low period of this industry, some people complained and hurriedly left the market, while others remained silent and observed, waiting for an opportunity to act. In comparison, the majority of those who succeeded were the latter. As one seller said: "From a dialectical point of view, the trough of the industry cycle is not entirely a bad thing. First, the stock of competitors decreases , and many players will be washed out; second, the incremental competitors are zero , and many potential competitors will not enter the market again; third, you can re-understand and reflect on yourself ." Just as Mr. Lu Xun said: Just like rowing against the current, no matter how you look at the wind and water, there is only one goal - to move forward . Whether it is e-commerce giants such as Amazon and Shopify, top sellers such as Youkeshu, or some small and medium-sized cross-border enterprises, layoffs or downsizing are all for the purpose of adjusting strategies, consolidating and deepening their roots, and waiting for the next opportunity for an explosion. What do you want to say about this? Feel free to leave a message in the comment area~ |
