New scams emerge in cross-border e-commerce! You must know these trends in the coming year

At the end of the year, scammers are rushing to achieve sales again! There are also Amazon sellers who have been deceived, and hundreds of sellers have lost more than 100,000!

This cross-border e-commerce platform named Lelong shop is a copycat of the Malaysian local e-commerce platform "Lelong". The two names are very easy to confuse. Lelong itself does not attract investment in China , so Lelong shop uses the banner of an official subsidiary and releases gimmicks such as "no source of goods" and "newbies with zero foundation can earn tens of thousands a month", attracting many sellers who are unaware of the truth to settle in.

The sellers who subsequently join the platform will have good orders for a period of time, but these are fake orders created by the copycats. The sellers need to place orders and ship goods on the platform's designated drop shipping platform, but in fact the purchase money has already gone to the scammers. The e-commerce platform will have some normal returns in the early stage, giving the sellers a little sweet taste, and then will use the deposit period to delay the sellers from withdrawing sales money. In the end, they will even directly withhold the sellers' returns on the grounds of logistics performance and bad product reviews, or even close the store and swallow the money directly .

The scam is that the sellers do not know that this is a copycat platform, and they fall into the trap because they trust the platform. Therefore, most of the sellers who were deceived this time are from inland areas where the cross-border e-commerce industry is relatively underdeveloped, such as Shanxi and Hebei.

As the cross-border e-commerce industry has become more and more popular in the past two years after the epidemic, people from all walks of life want to enter the market to get a piece of the pie. Newbies who don’t understand the situation in the industry can easily be fooled by such copycat platforms. Many people have actually heard of Amazon, but the scammers will tell everyone that Amazon is highly competitive and that small platforms are better. However, they don’t know that competition and traffic are directly proportional, just like buying a shop. Remote shops are cheap, but the problem is that they can’t make money at all. The more traffic a shop has, the more expensive it is, and the more intense the competition. Although Amazon has fierce competition, at least most people can make money. When choosing a platform and corresponding services, you must do multiple research and choose carefully.

In addition to being more cautious when choosing new platforms, there are several major trends in the cross-border e-commerce industry in 2023.

Last year, there were too many major trends that affected the entire cross-border e-commerce industry. Let me summarize for you how these trends will change this year.

1. The RMB exchange rate has entered a period of strength

Regardless of the current strategy of the central bank or the rise of China's economy, the RMB is destined to maintain a very strong exchange rate in 2023. The upward momentum of the US dollar has obviously lost its stamina, so the RMB exchange rate against the US dollar will be at a relatively high level in 2023. Everyone can reasonably arrange the withdrawal cycle of their own store.

2. US economy and employment situation picks up

In the fourth quarter of last year, the US inflation rate was under control, falling back to 6.5%. As a result, the US also reduced the pace of interest rate hikes. At the same time, the US unemployment rate in December also fell to 3.5%. The labor force participation rate rose by 0.2 percentage points month-on-month to 62.3%, and the number of jobs in the manufacturing and tourism industries recovered. The recovery of US employment and economy is also a good thing for our cross-border e-commerce industry . Local consumption power is expected to turn around next year. At the end of this year, it has been confirmed that consumers have more consumption potential. After the economy improves next year, the release of this potential will bring a wave of sales peaks to the cross-border e-commerce industry.

3. There is a serious imbalance between demand and supply, and shipping prices will continue to fall.

Last year's sluggish cross-border industry situation had a significant impact on the shipping industry. The demand for cross-border parcels and maritime logistics dropped significantly. We have seen the originally high shipping prices plummet again and again in the second half of last year, even falling below the pre-epidemic prices.

The shipping industry will face even bigger problems in 2023, as fleet capacity and supply have increased. 2020 was a big year for shipping, and shipping companies made a lot of money. Many shipping companies have arranged expansion plans, and some big sellers are also preparing their own freight fleets. These newly built freight ships will basically be delivered around 2023 and 2024. The shipping industry will face the phenomenon of "low demand" and "high supply", and prices will continue to fall or even fall further.

4. Amazon's advertising revenue exceeded expectations, and the advertising effect will be better this year

If we talk about how Amazon will make money in 2022, the advertising business must be one of the dark horses. Amazon's mall business has lost money for two consecutive quarters this year due to the huge investment in FBA, and it relied entirely on AWS and advertising business to pull in revenue. Moreover, at the end of the year, Amazon also signed a settlement agreement with the antitrust agency, which restricted the self-operated products in the mall business. Then Amazon will inevitably make more money from other parts to make up for it in 2023, and the advertising business will definitely be indispensable. Therefore, this year, Amazon will work harder on the drainage effect of advertising to attract more sellers to invest in in-site advertising. Sellers need to adjust their advertising strategies in a timely manner to adapt to Amazon's new algorithm.

5. Consumers have diversified choices, and multi-platform layout is more important

The peak season sales data at the end of the year has shown that current American consumers are more willing to spend their shopping budgets on more different platforms, choose more cost-effective new brands, etc. During Black Friday, Walmart's online search popularity even exceeded Amazon. Therefore, in 2023, sellers must make good plans and layouts for multi-platform operations, while dispersing platform risks and seizing more opportunities. It is recommended that you focus on existing Amazon stores and simultaneously fully expand the brand's Walmart, Wayfair and other platforms . The second point also said that the consumption power of the United States will be further released next year, and the layout of multiple platforms can help sellers catch this wave of traffic.

6. The Russian-Ukrainian war is the biggest uncertainty

I didn’t want to add this last point, but this major event has a huge impact on cross-border e-commerce. Last year’s Russia-Ukraine war had two huge impacts. One was that it stimulated capital risk aversion and significantly increased the US dollar exchange rate. The other was that it seriously affected the consumer psychology and shopping plans of European countries.

However, at the end of 2022, there is less news about the Russian-Ukrainian war, and both the international voice and people's attention have declined a lot. Russia's originally expected energy strategy to force Europe was resolved by Europe's warm winter this year, and Russia's initial combat goal (to keep the two regions in eastern Ukraine - Donetsk and Luhansk) has also been achieved. The possibility of reconciliation between the two countries this year is not small. The process and results of the reconciliation will have a huge impact on cross-border e-commerce. There will be a wave of super dollars that is no less than that in 2022. Everyone must seize this opportunity.