Tribute to the retrogrades: 2020 is difficult! But it’s fun!

To begin with, let me post a picture that is popular among foreign trade people’s circle of friends.

“In February, customers asked us if we could still ship.”

“In March, we asked our customers if they could still receive the goods?”

Foreign trade people joke that foreign trade is the industry that suffered the most during the epidemic. In February, factories were closed, international logistics stopped, and they dared not accept orders. In March, the epidemic was raging abroad, and masks and other epidemic prevention materials were in short supply. A bottle of disinfectant, which was purchased at 50 yuan, was even sold for 159 euros on the Italian Amazon platform . When a friend knew that you were doing Amazon, he quickly came to ask, "My friend, I have resources and you have a store. Do you want to cooperate?"

It seems like an opportunity to make a lot of money, but only Amazon veterans know the pitfalls. Platform price controls, product removals, customs obstructions, etc. are common.

The bold ones just sold the products without thinking twice, and they actually received 6,000 orders a day, which seemed to earn them 60,000 US dollars a day . However, they were worried about losing both the money and the products, and they could not sleep at night because they saw the balance of hundreds of thousands of US dollars that Amazon had to deposit. I can't help but ask myself, is there any industry worse off than foreign trade people?

Recently, more and more people have been concerned about me. They all came to ask me how I was doing recently, given the serious epidemic situation abroad, and what I should do about Amazon. Sellers with annual sales of hundreds of millions of yuan have also begun to get anxious and interviewed me directly on WeChat.

From everyone's inquiries, I deeply feel everyone's anxiety, so I want to send a unified message to tell everyone, don't panic, stay calm, we can win.

Let me talk about my mental state first: 2020 is more difficult than 2019, but difficulty is fun! Every crisis contains opportunities, as Churchill said, "Never waste a crisis." A global crisis allows us to truly feel the end of one era and the beginning of another .

In this crisis, we should be proud of being Chinese. Chinese people are like prophets endowed by God, and have gone through the process ahead of the world situation. We often sigh that if we had known that houses were so popular a few years ago, we would have bought a few more houses.

This time, we have such a right. We know the whole development process of the epidemic before the world, and business opportunities appear in the analogy. For example, when the epidemic broke out abroad, we foreign trade people were very sure that masks would be a hit, because we have experienced the time when masks were hard to find and could not be bought even if we had money.

As a result, everyone knows that masks have become a hot item. China's productivity has recovered, and the price of a KN95 has dropped to 6 yuan. The pharmacies have posted signs saying "Masks have arrived" at their doors. The price of N95 in the United States is 15.99 US dollars, plus the small package shipping fee of 30 yuan, minus the 15% commission of the platform, there is still a profit of 60 yuan. 6,000 orders a day means a profit of 180,000 yuan. No wonder so many Amazon people are rushing in.

Of course, this is just an example. I don’t mean that I support everyone to enter Amazon to sell masks. This example is just used to show that foreign trade people in China really have opened their eyes. If we follow the trajectory of China, the longest and most popular product will be masks, followed by forehead thermometers, protective clothing, goggles, sterilization tablets, etc.

So, you see, we foreign trade people are not miserable at all. On the contrary, we have the ability to predict the future. It just depends on how you seize this opportunity.

Because of this epidemic, many people have begun to criticize Amazon. I hold the opposite view: if there had not been this epidemic, Amazon's decline would have been inevitable. My attitude towards everything is that everything that rises must fall. Bezos has reached the top of the parabola since he became the world's richest man. However, this epidemic has allowed Amazon to continue to dominate the e-commerce industry.

The reason is simple. The biggest impact of the epidemic on people is the inconvenience of movement. Many daily necessities need to be purchased online . Amazon itself has huge traffic and is well-known for its partiality. It will never let buyers suffer any grievances.

At this time, with the turbulent situation abroad, will buyers choose other new platforms instead of Amazon? Just like when we experienced the epidemic in February, people would still choose Taobao and JD.com for shopping, because what they need at this time is to receive the products as soon as possible, rather than trial and error on other platforms. Even Trump, the old enemy, bowed his head and shook hands with Bezos, the boss of Amazon, which shows how great Amazon's influence is.

At this time, some sellers will definitely jump out and ask, " Since everyone chooses to shop on Amazon, why do my orders decrease instead of increase? " As a seller who has been operating on the Amazon platform for 8 years, I can tell you responsibly: it is related to the category .

The most serious decline in orders is in the category of wedding dresses. Not only has the order dropped, but the orders that have already been placed and are on the way are likely to be cancelled . After all, no one is holding a wedding at this critical juncture. Another huge impact is the outdoor category. New York and California in the United States have issued "stay-at-home orders", avoiding going out for unnecessary matters, and the demand for outdoor fitness products has naturally decreased greatly . Even the carefree Spaniards have borrowed their dogs many times in order to go out, and they are exhausted and collapsed on the sofa.

Alexa big data shows that the average daily traffic has continued to rise in the past month, with the average daily PV rising from 213.2534 million to 238.7701 million, and the average daily page views increased by 25 million. Although the following figure is in 100 million as the vertical axis unit, it can still be seen that the traffic continues to rise.

Before the Federal Reserve started unlimited money printing, the U.S. stock market experienced four circuit breakers, but Amazon was just a bright spot among the crowds.

(This is a virtual purchase, mainly for comparing the market value of multiple companies)

Even though the stock price is much higher than other e-commerce platforms (even I think it is very bubble), eBay is only tens of dollars, Walmart is more than 100 dollars, Apple is more than 200 dollars, and Amazon is actually 1,800 dollars per share. Even with such an inflated price, it can still rise slightly , which shows the degree of trust Americans have in Amazon.

Therefore, after reading these data, we know that as foreign trade people in Amazon, we should not only not be anxious, but also seize the opportunity. This is an industry reshuffle, and naturally there are many companies that have collapsed. But I dare say that for these collapsed companies, the epidemic is just the last straw that broke the camel's back . They have long been weak and difficult to recover, either due to management problems or financial deficits. They just give themselves a good reason to follow the epidemic.

Truly capable companies will accumulate strength during this epidemic, screen talents, identify opportunities, and strike back at once.

After the epidemic, e-commerce is undoubtedly the fastest recovering industry. Due to the fear of the virus, people still need to wear masks even when shopping in shopping malls. Compared with e-commerce, which is more convenient and allows for unconditional returns, the advantages of offline shopping are further weakened.

For example, Amazon sellers in the clothing category have seen a drop in orders recently. People have reduced their social needs and are wearing home clothes at home, so they don’t have the energy to dress up. As a result, orders for clothing for going out have naturally decreased. When the epidemic is over, people will start to manage their body shape and want to enjoy the sun and the beach. The suppressed demand will be infinitely magnified.

If we compare people's needs to a ball, we are now desperately suppressing those who can save money. When the epidemic is over, the elastic ball will rebound due to being pressed, and even retaliatory consumption will occur . To use the Engel coefficient in political science, people in the epidemic try to suppress their total expenditure in the denominator for a sense of security, and the numerator of food and clothing remains unchanged, so we can see that the social economic index is declining.

Many foreign trade people see the appearance of being suppressed, and they are anxious because of anxiety. But those who really achieve great things will not feel desperate because of the increase in the number of foreign epidemics. They understand this information just for the flow of information and do not miss any opportunity to act.

“Whenever something big happens, more people follow the crowd and make a fuss, and fewer people think calmly. Whenever a crisis occurs, more people focus on the risks, and fewer people see the opportunities.”

I am here to share with you some methods to overcome anxiety.

1. Divide big goals into small goals to increase your sense of accomplishment.

For example, when I arrive at the office every day, no matter how busy I am, the first thing I do is to list my daily plans. I check off each item I complete, and the moment I check off a task, I feel a sense of accomplishment . When I finish a day's work, I see that the entire day's work is in a check-off state, which makes me feel fulfilled from the inside out.

As the person in charge of the company, there will naturally be a lot of temporary things. When there is an urgent matter, I add it to my list and enrich my form. This habit comes from remote work during the epidemic. In order to complete team collaboration and supervision, everyone has to list the work of the day and update the progress regularly.

Although remote work has ended, I still persist in doing this work because I feel that it helps improve efficiency. I have an average of 15-20 tasks a day. I suggest that people who are just starting out list about 5 items and then add more items based on their abilities.

2. Pay attention to world affairs and discuss them with colleagues or friends when possible.

Some people are curious about the update speed of our public account. Whenever there is news on Amazon, we are always the first to release it. Our office has a fixed project every day: discussing the international situation. The public account team will participate in it as a whole, vying to tell the latest news they have received, including news from the external network, changes tried on the platform, and news from various groups and friends (we have 10 ordinary Amazon groups alone, and everyone discusses current affairs in them every day ). Naturally, the speed of getting news is very fast.

In addition, we try to express our own opinions during discussions, which can also reflect our own unique perspectives . When other colleagues say, "Oh my god, you know all this," we feel a great sense of accomplishment. If we have extreme perspectives, they can be refuted immediately by others. This greatly avoids us from falling into panic.

3. Strengthen learning and enrich yourself.

The most terrifying thing about anxiety is anxiety itself. Instead of spending time worrying, it is better to keep yourself busy and learn skills to enrich yourself. I have many excellent students whose orders have increased instead of decreased during this epidemic. In February, most people were playing games on their phones, but these students who had a surge in orders sorted out their previous study notes and wrote a thick stack of them, and then applied them to their own Amazon operations. While everyone was anxious, they directly secured the BSR list.

4. Finally , I would like to give managers a suggestion: do not fall into the misunderstanding of spending 60% of your time doing things . You should strengthen the selection and training of talents, spend 60% of your time on talent training, and make the team your core competitiveness. No matter how capable a manager is, he or she only has 24 hours a day like ordinary people. Take advantage of the current situation to train a large number of leadership talents. Take Amazon operations as an example. The leader himself or herself is from Amazon operations. Take advantage of the current situation to learn a variety of methods to create hot products from courses, books, forums, etc., and then regularly train the team. This will not only sort out your own knowledge, but also improve the cognition of the entire team. Seize this wave of opportunities immediately after the epidemic.

This epidemic has undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to the world and the entire industry. However, as foreign trade people in China, we are so lucky. With the support of a rising China and a strong Made in China industry, what qualifications do we have to worry? Pessimists get applause, and only optimists succeed.

Finally, I would like to end with a picture. China, which has just experienced an epidemic, is rebounding economically in a strong posture. As prophets, foreign trade people should show their attitude and accumulate strength for a strong rebound.

It is useless to just worry. Learning to use your anxiety to learn, improve, and seize fleeting market opportunities is what Amazon people need to do most.