Recently, the American magazine Time released the cover of its latest issue, which reads "2020 is the worst year", and a red cross is drawn on the black 2020 on a white background. It is reported that this red cross mark has only appeared four times on the cover of the magazine.

2020 is destined to be an extraordinary year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the fate of many people has changed. But is 2020 a bad year for cross-border sellers?

Restrictions on shipments, logistics price increases, bans on goods, sellers have experienced too much this year. The timeline has come to the end of the year, and a series of "aftereffects" caused by the epidemic are still continuing in the cross-border e-commerce circle...

More than 50,000 people took to the streets in France during Black Friday

Amazon sellers in France have had a rough time, whether it was the ban on sales in the first half of the year or the boycott of big promotions in the second half of the year, which was enough to make sellers anxious. Sellers finally waited for the Black Friday promotion on December 4, but a demonstration of tens of thousands of people diluted the joy of the festival.

According to foreign media reports, on December 5, demonstrations were held in many cities in France. Police and demonstrators clashed at some of the demonstration sites, and 95 demonstrators were arrested.

          ▲ Picture from Reuters

According to organizers, there were nearly 90 similar rallies across France, mainly protesting against police brutality and the Comprehensive Security Law bill.

The French Interior Ministry said that about 52,000 people took to the streets across the country on December 5, compared with more than 130,000 a week ago.

During the protests, protesters engaged in acts of vandalism and violence, throwing Molotov cocktails at security personnel, burning vehicles, and destroying buildings. The streets of France were once very chaotic.

Such a large-scale demonstration took place during Black Friday, which will affect sellers’ sales to a certain extent. Some sellers reported that Black Friday on the French website was “very quiet, no different from usual.”

Before the lockdown in Europe, some sellers suffered a large number of order cancellations. Black Friday was a good time to clear inventory. Now that large-scale demonstrations have broken out, not only are sellers’ sales poor, but subsequent logistics and delivery have also become a major problem.

At the same time, large-scale demonstrations are also a major threat to the French epidemic. French officials plan to end the second national "lockdown" on the 15th of this month, but the demonstrations of tens of thousands of people have exacerbated the spread of the epidemic. The authorities have not yet reached a conclusion on whether the "lockdown" will end as scheduled.

In addition to France, the "aftermath" of the epidemic is also happening in the United States.

The epidemic in California, the United States, has worsened and a "stay-at-home order" has been implemented

It is learned that the epidemic in the United States has been worsening recently, and the cumulative number of confirmed cases in California has exceeded 1.3 million. Local officials said that according to the relevant regulations announced by California Governor Newsom a few days ago, many places in California will implement a new "stay-at-home order" starting from the evening of the 6th local time.

According to the regulations, a large area including southern California and parts of central California will implement a "stay-at-home order" starting from the evening of the 6th local time, which will last for at least three weeks and affect about 27 million people. During this period, people should stay at home except for necessary activities, and some commercial facilities will also be closed.

Once the California "stay-at-home order" takes effect, cross-border logistics will inevitably be affected. The logistics efficiency of Amazon warehouses in California will also be greatly reduced, and the speed at which sellers can put their goods on the shelves will become abnormally slow.

Attached below are some warehouses located in California for sellers’ reference:

ONT2, ONT6, ONT8, OAK4, OAK3, ONT9, ONT7, LAX9, FAT1, SJC8, SMF3, XIX6, KRB1, SCK1, XUSD, SNA4, SJC7, LGB8, LGB6, LGB4, LGB3, LGB7, SMF1, etc.

Sellers with goods located in the above warehouses should pay more attention to local news and logistics information during the three weeks of the implementation of the "stay-at-home order" and make timely adjustments based on the latest situation.

Affected by the epidemic, the logistics situation of cross-border e-commerce has been poor this year. Not only are there delays in the United States, but bad news of warehouse explosions, price increases, and lost goods has also frequently been reported in many other places.

Cross-border logistics problems continue under the shadow of the epidemic

With the outbreak of the epidemic, poor logistics has become the biggest pain point for sellers.

Last week, a major accident involving a large container ship losing cargo attracted the attention of many industry insiders. It is understood that the truck departed from Yantian, China to the Port of Long Beach, and due to bad weather on the way, more than 1,900 containers may have been lost or damaged.

In addition to the heartache caused by lost goods, the rising speed of logistics prices and the slow logistics timeliness also cause sellers a lot of trouble.

The price of shipping containers across the seven seas has risen sharply in recent months, according to spot prices published weekly by the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index.

The latest data shows that Asia-Europe shipping rates have increased by 200% year-on-year, freight rates on the US West Coast and US East Coast routes have increased by 161.6% and 78.2% year-on-year, Mediterranean routes have increased by 209.2% year-on-year, and freight rates on Southeast Asian routes have skyrocketed by 390%!

However, the speed at which goods are put on shelves can never keep up with the speed at which logistics prices rise. To this day, warehouses in many parts of the United States are still in a state of serious overload. In addition, with the surge in packages during the peak season, Amazon's insufficient transportation capacity has slowed down the speed of putting goods on shelves, causing many sellers to be out of stock.

On one hand, there are high shipping costs, on the other hand, there are constant delays in logistics timeliness, plus the recent sharp drop in storage capacity. Sellers are suffering during this year-end peak season.

Is 2020 really the worst year? I believe every seller has a different answer in their mind.

Although we don’t know when the “aftermath” of the epidemic will improve, we can still look forward to the arrival of cross-border spring together!