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▶ Video account attention cross-border navigation "I have always assumed the worst of Amazon, but I never expected or believed it could be so brutal." ——This is what the seller who packed up his packages overnight and prepared to escape from Amazon said.
In 2022, it seems that many cross-border sellers have lost their enthusiasm for registering new Amazon stores.
The reason for this is most likely the heavy hammer of Amazon’s account suspension last year, the exponential increase in shipping and service fees, and the prevalence of the low-price spiral among peers, which have greatly squeezed sellers’ profits and even caused many sellers to suffer “heavy losses.” “Is it stressful to work at Amazon?” "I dreamt yesterday that I was gone, and was asked how many orders I had placed, and I said 0." ▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group In this arena where Amazon is both the referee and the athlete, sellers are already exhausted just by worrying about daily orders and fearing pranks from their peers, but they also have to be on guard against Amazon's "surprises" at all times. In this regard, it is also learned that Amazon is likely to face a criminal investigation recently for allegedly "obstructing antitrust investigations." In this antitrust investigation, the House Judiciary Committee also stated that it had found evidence from Amazon's third-party sellers that Amazon has been using third-party seller data to develop its own products and giving them priority display in search results. Amazon's own business "copies" third-party sellers It is learned that on March 9, U.S. congressmen stated that during the Antitrust Committee's investigation of Amazon, Amazon always refused to provide relevant information, seriously affecting and obstructing the committee's investigation. Therefore, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Amazon and some of its executives. However, it is learned that during the investigation, Amazon's lawyers have been refusing to provide investigation reports and some other documents. Although Amazon has been denying the allegations, Amazon executives have been defending the company in a series of hearings during the investigation, but have failed to provide evidence to prove that they have not engaged in bad business practices. The committee also found evidence from Amazon’s third-party sellers that Amazon has been using third-party seller data to develop its own products and giving them priority display in search results. In this regard, many sellers have previously reported that Amazon’s own products are always ranked at the forefront of each category. Some sellers said that when they were selecting products, they looked at the categories at the front desk and found that basically the top 10 had Amazon's own products. What's more, among the top 20 in a subcategory, 15 of them were Amazon's own. Self-operated advertising is like free money, and it is always in the best position. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Some sellers mentioned that Amazon itself sold second-hand products at a low price through the seller’s link, and the price was only two-fifths of the seller’s product price. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Some sellers even reported that Amazon sold the same brand products without obtaining brand authorization, and their complaints were useless. ▲ The picture comes from Zhiwubuyan Cross-border sellers are very angry about this: "In the final analysis, your hard work in selecting products may just be helping Amazon to make mistakes and explore the way for free. Once things get better, Amazon will block you and make way for itself." “Your products are well developed. Amazon wants sellers to continuously develop new products for them.” “When you develop a market, Amazon will come in.” "The platform belongs to others, and the products will eventually belong to others as well. We are workers paving the way for Amazon ." But we also learned that US committee officials said: "Amazon has been working to obstruct the committee's efforts to reveal the truth about its business, and it must be held accountable for this." This shows the committee's determination to investigate Amazon. Perhaps this investigation will allow Amazon to “restrain itself” and give Amazon sellers some “breathing space”. But as far as the current situation is concerned, the international situation is unpredictable, the epidemic has come back again, and the current difficult situation of cross-border sellers has not changed. Compared with the recent bad luck of Amazon sellers, the profit situation of shipping companies is quite the opposite. Net profit soared nearly 800%, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings released its annual performance report It is learned that following Evergreen and CMA CGM mentioned in the previous article [Making a profit of 13 billion in January! The dark horse of logistics has seen a sharp increase in revenue, but these shipping companies are under investigation! ], COSCO SHIPPING Holdings has also recently released an announcement of its 2021 annual performance report. The announcement shows that during the reporting period, COSCO Shipping's operating income in 2021 was 333.694 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 94.85%; net profit was 89.296 billion yuan, a year-on-year surge of 799.52%. As for the reasons for the substantial increase in performance, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings believes that the company has overcome the combined impact of multiple factors such as the global epidemic in 2021, actively integrated into the construction of domestic and international dual circulation, and fully leveraged the supporting role of the container logistics supply chain. Through measures such as stabilizing capacity, ensuring supply of containers, and improving services, it has made every effort to ensure global transportation services. According to the company's preliminary calculations, during the reporting period, the cargo volume of COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' container shipping business is expected to be approximately 26.912 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase of approximately 2.15%; the profit before interest and taxes is expected to be approximately RMB 131.543 billion, a year-on-year increase of approximately 629.51%. Regarding the operating conditions from 2022 to date, COSCO Shipping also stated that major ports in Europe and the United States continued to be congested, and freight rates on trunk routes were stable; the company actively took effective measures to fully guarantee global transportation services, the east-west trunk export voyages remained fully loaded, production and operations were normal, and the financial situation was good. It is not difficult to predict that COSCO Shipping’s performance in 2022 is also likely to be "full load". In addition, it is also known that the global supply chain has been hit hard, and the recent escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has further aggravated the congestion of the global logistics supply chain. Based on this, FourKites, a supply chain logistics service company, predicts that in some cases, shipping costs will increase by 20 to 40 times. ▲ The picture comes from the Internet However, it is not certain whether the logistics service company's forecast is accurate so far. Sellers also remain skeptical about the news: “This is too exaggerated.” "The freight forwarder wrote this nonsense, didn't he?" "If it's really that high, everyone should go home and retire." "If you dare to increase the price, you dare not do it." ▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group
Under the epidemic, port congestion, supply and demand imbalance, and rising freight rates seem to have become the norm faced by cross-border sellers, and the congestion in the Amazon track has also gradually become apparent. Whether to focus on competing in Amazon channels or to choose another way to explore other platforms has become an issue that Amazon sellers urgently need to pay attention to. I wonder what the sellers think about this? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area~
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