Is the store closure incident seeing a new turn? Shenzhen's move is really powerful

Some time ago, Amazon collectively banned a number of Chinese sellers' stores, and many big sellers are still on the long road of appeal. Just today, the Shenzhen Bureau of Commerce held a cross-border e-commerce symposium specifically for this situation, to learn more about the situation and study countermeasures.

The symposium will be led by a research team from the Guangdong Provincial Department of Commerce, which will learn about the actual "store closure" status of major cross-border companies in Shenzhen, including the number of closed stores, the product brands involved, the amount of funds and inventory frozen by Amazon, the transaction volume affected by the "store closure", and the number of forced layoffs.

Although we all knew that several big sellers were deeply involved in the store closure incident, only the parent companies of some of them issued major event announcements to officially announce the store closure situation, and we had no way of knowing how many stores were closed, how many products were sold, and what the losses were. After this symposium, we will basically know the damage situation of each company, and we will also know how big and extensive the Amazon store closure incident is.

I have seen some news that cross-border sellers have specifically stated that their stores have not been restored. This news is quite interesting. Under normal circumstances, the external announcements must say something nice. Even if there is a store closure, they must say "the problem is being actively resolved and has little impact on normal business" to stabilize the emotions of suppliers and investors and prevent runs. That is why this symposium was held to give major sellers an opportunity to introduce their true situation.

In fact, the higher-level Ministry of Commerce has already discussed this issue at a press conference a few weeks ago. Will the intervention of the Shenzhen Provincial Department of Commerce bring any new developments?

Although the last conversation with the Ministry of Commerce was at a higher level, it was not aimed at the Amazon situation. It was a regular first-half work report of the Ministry of Commerce, and Amazon was only mentioned briefly.

The content of the last conversation actually revealed a situation. The relevant departments actually lack information about the reasons, scope, impact and losses of the store closure in our industry. After all, even some sellers in the industry cannot fully grasp the ins and outs of this matter. Therefore, in this report from the Ministry of Commerce, they can only broadly say "require fair and reasonable handling, and firmly support companies to take reasonable measures to protect their legitimate rights and interests." In fact, it is just a statement here, requiring sellers to operate in compliance with regulations. If Amazon really treats, discriminates and targets Chinese sellers, the national level can provide support. At the same time, it also paves the way for this special symposium at the Guangdong Provincial Department level.

Therefore, the purpose of this symposium is very clear, which is to collect the true situation of the sellers’ store closures and to see if there are any government agencies that can come forward to help.

In fact, from the perspective of us sellers, this closure is indeed directly related to the gray and even illegal operations of big sellers, but few foreign sellers were affected in this closure, and most of the top sellers in the United States did not even have a few comments removed. It is easy to tell whether it is aimed at Chinese sellers.

And if the store is closed because of violating platform rules, then we are not right, and it is difficult for the country to directly put pressure on Amazon. But if they start from the angle of different treatment and discrimination against Chinese sellers, then they can make a big fuss. So I suggest that when discussing the store closure, try to guide it towards discrimination against Chinese sellers and different treatment (which is indeed the case). Only when this angle is magnified and brought to the top, can we have a chance to truly liberate ourselves from the store closure trend.