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▶ Video account attention cross-border navigation After months of preparation, sellers finally welcomed the annual important sales node - Black Friday last week. However, surprisingly, this year's Black Friday not only failed to continue the buff of previous years, but some sellers' orders were completely cold, and even worse than in the past.
Looking back at the various ecosystems of this Black Friday, there are sellers who have quietly seen a surge in orders, and there are sellers whose sales have improved significantly, but the situation of most sellers is not optimistic. They are either facing the dilemma of out-of-stock of popular products, or having excess inventory that cannot be sold, and some sellers have their accounts blocked and are eliminated early. Amid the collective cold reception, Black Friday sales data has just been released, and the results are unsurprisingly lower than previous general expectations. Black Friday online spending was lower than expected, will Cyber Monday reverse the downward trend? According to Adobe data, total online spending in the United States on Black Friday was $8.9 billion, slightly lower than the $9 billion in 2020 and significantly lower than Adobe's expected range. In addition, Thanksgiving was flat with the same period last year at $ 5.1 billion . This also marks the first time that online spending performance on Thanksgiving and Black Friday reversed the growth trend of the past few years and did not increase year-on-year. Adobe analysis shows that the early holiday shopping has killed the growth of online sales on Black Friday in 2021. The early warm-up of various major promotions has made consumers more strategic when shopping, buying earlier in the season and choosing shopping time flexibly to ensure the best prices. In addition, the intensified shortage problem and supply chain crisis have also affected consumers' enthusiasm for online shopping to a certain extent. On the other hand, it can also be seen that nowadays more and more consumers are flocking back to offline physical stores to shop. As the boosting effect of the epidemic gradually weakens, the advantages and attractiveness of online consumption are also declining. Overall, the cold reception of Black Friday this year can be attributed to many factors. On the eve of the big sale, a boycott of Black Friday was launched abroad, and strikes in various countries have intensified. Not only that, some sellers also joked that the reason why Black Friday received a mediocre response was mainly because foreigners were enjoying a "zero-dollar shopping festival" . ▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group Recently, the United States has been caught in the double whammy of inflation and supply chain crisis, causing people to face the dilemma of rising commodity prices and shortage of daily necessities. With the arrival of the peak sales season, major merchants are increasingly stocking up, which has spawned a large number of "zero-dollar purchases" - a robbery frenzy. ▲ The picture comes from Weibo The foreign economy has been severely hit by the COVID-19 epidemic. Many unemployed people can only rely on government subsidies to survive. However, the free money distribution plans that have been introduced one after another can hardly make up for the soaring prices. This has also caused the frequent occurrence of "zero-yuan purchases". Even with the arrival of big promotions, consumer enthusiasm has taken a sharp turn for the worse, which is nothing more than the "coolness" of this year's Black Friday. However, this year's Black Friday is not completely shrouded in gloom. Recently, Shopify also released its Black Friday sales data, with sales totaling nearly US$2.9 billion, up 21% year-on-year from 2020. The data directly shows that Shopify, which has performed well this year, is still maintaining steady growth. It is learned that Adobe expects Cyber Monday to be the largest online shopping day in 2021, with online spending reaching between $10.2 billion and $11.3 billion. Therefore, for sellers, they can still seize sales opportunities on Cyber Monday and reverse the decline of Black Friday. Protest groups besieged Amazon warehouses, and peak season logistics and transportation may be affected! While the peak season promotions are in full swing, Amazon is facing pressure from protest organizations in many countries around the world. Its warehouses in three European countries have been surrounded by a large number of protesters, and the timeliness of logistics and delivery is likely to be affected. The protests are reportedly aimed at drawing attention to Amazon's exploitative and environmentally destructive business practices, its disregard for workers' rights in the name of corporate profits, and the wastefulness of Black Friday. One group, called Extinction Rebellion, called on a large number of members to camp in 13 Amazon's UK fulfillment centers, planning to disrupt 50% of its deliveries on Black Friday. Similar protests were also launched in Germany and the Netherlands. In addition to this organization, dozens of protest groups in the United States and around the world also organized a global protest and strike against Amazon on Black Friday, demanding that Amazon provide better working conditions, commit to sustainable operations, and pay its fair taxes. At Amazon's distribution center in Dunfermline, Scotland, about 20 organizing members hung a banner reading "Make Amazon Pay" on the road at the entrance and blocked trucks from entering and leaving. Some members of the group also blocked an Amazon logistics center in the central German town of Bad Hersfeld, and they built a makeshift scaffolding to hang themselves in the air. Currently, the conflict between Amazon and workers is becoming increasingly intensified. Workers' protests have escalated from strikes and demonstrations to blockading operations centers, hindering the normal turnover of warehouse logistics. Now that it is the peak season with high demand, the number of packages in various places has increased sharply. The successive strikes and the already scarce labor force are likely to greatly reduce Amazon's cargo transportation efficiency, leading to even greater logistics delays. It is learned that this year many sellers missed Black Friday because their goods could not be put into storage in time. “My goods are in the United States, at the port, in the cabinet, but not in Amazon’s warehouse.” "The general ship that set off on August 26 is still docking at the latest news." "A few days ago, half of the shipment was stopped. I heard that all the employees who were responsible for receiving Amazon goods were transferred to shipping." Some sellers' goods have been drifting at sea for months and have not yet reached the port, while others' goods are stuck due to port congestion. After going through numerous difficulties and dangers to reach the operation center, they are unable to be put on the shelves in time due to low warehousing efficiency. ▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group Some sellers also said that they spent a lot of logistics costs on air freight in order to catch up with Black Friday, but after the goods were put on the shelves, they suddenly found that they were out of stock and could not be sold. After opening the case information, the reply they received was that the warehouse was closed due to uncontrollable factors and would not be reopened until December. There is no conclusive evidence whether the warehouse was closed due to the protests that broke out abroad. But what is certain is that if the situation escalates, more and more sellers will experience logistics delays and miss the last train of various major promotions. From the current perspective, this year's Black Friday did not trigger a shopping frenzy as expected, and sellers were also hit hard by multiple factors such as account suspension, out-of-stock, and soaring costs. Overall, their performance was unsatisfactory. However, some sellers believe that most consumers shop in physical stores during Black Friday, and that Cyber 1 is the peak of traffic. Combined with Adobe's market research, this statement is not without reason, so sellers do not need to be too discouraged and should quickly adjust their mentality to prepare for the upcoming Cyber 1 promotion.
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