Cross-border headlines of the week | Closing warehouses and laying off employees! Amazon closes 7 warehouses in Canada

Anti-hair loss products are being snapped up on TikTok

Recently, a liquid multivitamin that focuses on hair health has become popular in the US market. According to Fastmoss data, in the past 7 days (1.18-1.24), the product sold a total of 47,200 orders and achieved sales of 1.7277 million US dollars. It is worth mentioning that the product also topped the TikTok US weekly best-selling list a few weeks ago, and its strength should not be underestimated.

In detail, this anti-hair loss liquid vitamin comes from MaryRuth's, a local store in the United States, and was launched at the end of February last year. From the product itself, the ingredients of this product include all eight B vitamins, and the clinically proven Lustriva® ingredient is added, which can promote hair growth by increasing hair thickness.

The 2025 Global Brand Value Ranking was announced.

Amazon and Walmart round out the top five

Recently, the brand valuation consulting company Brand Finance released a list of the "Top 500 Global Brand Values ​​in 2025". In this list, global retail giants Amazon and Walmart both made it to the top five, with Amazon ranking fourth and Walmart ranking fifth. The two are only behind technology giants Apple, Microsoft and Google.

In terms of brand value, Amazon is $356.4 billion, higher than Walmart's $137.2 billion. However, in terms of the growth rate of brand value, Walmart is better than Amazon, with its brand value increasing by 42% compared to 2024, while Amazon's year-on-year growth rate is only 15%.

On another heavyweight list, Amazon and Walmart also rushed to the front row. Earlier this year, Fortune magazine released the "2024 Global Highest Revenue Companies Ranking". In this list, Walmart ranked first with revenue of $648.1 billion, and Amazon ranked second with revenue of $574.8 billion. These two retail giants left behind giants such as Apple, Volkswagen, and ExxonMobil.

Overtaking in the US market,

China's two major e-commerce platforms entered the top ten

Recently, the e-commerce data analysis website ECDB released the 2024 US e-commerce platform rankings, revealing the latest pattern of the US e-commerce market. In this fierce competition, Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Target and Best Buy still occupy the top five, while the strong rise of Chinese e-commerce platforms AliExpress and Temu has become the biggest highlight of this list, occupying the sixth and seventh positions respectively.

Since its launch in 2022, Temu has quickly attracted a large number of consumers with its low-priced products, large-scale marketing strategies and gamified shopping experience, becoming the top free app download in the United States for two consecutive years. AliExpress, as a pioneer in the US market, has also performed well and has always been a leader in the US e-commerce market.

It is worth mentioning that Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms are not only popular among American consumers, but also highly sought after in the European market. Not long ago, the research institution CBCommerce.eu released a report titled "Top 100 Cross-border Markets in Europe", which disclosed the current top ten e-commerce rankings in Europe. AliExpress, Temu, and SHEIN are all in the top ten.

Amazon continues to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Seven warehouses in Canada will be closed

Recently, according to media reports, Amazon will gradually close all warehouses in Quebec, Canada in the next two months.

It is understood that the closed warehouses include a distribution center, two sorting centers, three distribution stations and an AMXL facility (which can assist in the delivery of large goods such as televisions and furniture). The closure of all these warehouses means that all related Amazon employees will be laid off, of which 1,700 employees are regular employees and 250 employees are seasonal part-time staff.

An Amazon spokesperson said, "The company's decision was made after careful consideration. Next, we will resume the third-party service model contracted by local small businesses, which will not only ensure that our service quality is not affected, but also save more costs for our customers through long-term operations."

Shortly before announcing layoffs in Canada, Amazon also announced layoffs of nearly 200 people in its North American store department. It is understood that the layoffs are mainly concentrated in the core retail department, which covers a wide range of businesses, including Prime membership programs, private brands, consumables and other sub-businesses.

Shopee cancels the blacklist function.

The seller can't sit still

According to reports, Shopee Malaysia recently issued an announcement, announcing that "starting from January 15, 2025, the 'block this user' function for all users on the platform will be stopped." As soon as this announcement came out, it immediately aroused heated discussions among sellers.

You should know that the "blacklist user" function has always been an important tool for sellers to maintain store operating order and effectively avoid loss risks. When encountering malicious orders, malicious bad reviews, or frequent harassment from bad users, sellers will use the "blacklist user" function to block bad users in order to reduce unnecessary trouble and potential costs.

Now that the "blacklist user" function has been cancelled, sellers have lost the autonomy to block users, which inevitably makes them feel uneasy. One seller said that the cancellation of the "blacklist user" function may make some malicious consumers more unscrupulous and increase the difficulty of sellers' operations.

However, sellers do not need to worry too much. In the announcement, Shopee Malaysia also mentioned that it will provide a user reporting function. Sellers can click "Report this user", select the reason and fill in the details to report. From the reporting reasons, not only consumers' fraudulent orders and harassment of sellers are within the scope of reporting, but sellers' illegal business operations will also be supervised.