More than 70 Amazon warehouses closed! The United States is facing a rare crisis

The United States has recently experienced extremely rare severe weather. Millions of residents in Texas have been forced to cut off electricity and water due to a rare cold wave. The extreme weather has caused nearly 50 deaths across the United States, of which more than half are in Texas, the worst-hit state!

The cold wave not only brought the lowest temperature in decades, but also destroyed the water supply and wind power generation systems in Texas. Local residents were forced to cut off water and electricity, and the electricity price even soared by 10,000%! The price of electricity was as high as 65 yuan per kilowatt-hour, and all the electricity was supplied to the city center first, while the residential areas were left in darkness and at the mercy of fate.

Texas residents suffered water and power outages, and there was no way to quickly heat their homes. Long queues formed at major stores to buy resources such as coal, gas tanks, and candles. Those who failed to get any were forced to tear down their fences and even some children's building blocks to burn for heating.

Except for Texas, the entire United States experienced the end of the world as this wave of cold wave from the Arctic Circle moved southward, with dozens of centimeters of snow everywhere and indoor water pipes freezing and bursting.

Such a dire situation has seriously affected the normal operation of the local area in the United States. Even Amazon warehouses were forced to close more than 70, which is nearly one-third of the total number of FBA warehouses in the United States!

These warehouses are expected to receive goods normally at least until the end of February, and warehouses in the central United States, which are more affected, may have to postpone their delivery. Most of the warehouses that were not affected by the blizzard are near the east and west coasts of the United States, which are relatively warm. I found a map of the average temperature of the affected areas. You can check whether your warehouse is severely affected and whether it may be forced to close in the future.

In response to this ongoing disaster, Amazon has also provided some coping methods and preferential policies.

In its latest announcement, Amazon warned sellers about the various problems that may be caused by severe cold weather, and also appropriately relaxed some delivery requirements for sellers that may be affected. Sellers who have self-delivery orders or participate in SFP should pay attention.

1. If the seller cannot deliver the self-delivered order on time, the logistics list can be temporarily set to invalid. For related settings, please refer to the "List Status" help page for vacations, holidays and other absences.

2. If the seller is sure that the self-fulfilled order cannot be shipped, the SFP seller can temporarily turn off the Prime badge on the product to avoid affecting the customer experience. Wait until the weather improves and the order can be shipped on time, then turn on the Prime badge.

3. You can contact the buyer through the buyer-seller messaging service to inform the buyer that the order will be delayed due to the snowstorm.

Due to delays and performance losses caused by severe weather, Amazon will re-evaluate the situation after the seller's appeal is verified. This requires sellers to provide timely feedback to Amazon when they receive any performance-related reminders.

Sellers using the FBA program will have Amazon handle any problems that may occur. However, many freight forwarders have issued warnings that warehouse entry will be delayed by at least 2-3 weeks for those whose first-leg transportation is affected. The list of affected warehouses is still expanding. I will keep an eye on the list of suspended warehouses through various channels. Sellers who need the latest list of suspended warehouses can contact me for it!