Seller orders plummet! The United States plans to distribute hundreds of billions of cash

Yesterday, Amazon suddenly announced that it would ban non-essential goods from entering its warehouses, which caught us sellers off guard. We notified everyone as soon as possible yesterday, allowing a small number of seller fans to create shipments in the last half hour of the 16th.

Now the affected sellers can no longer create new delivery plans, and some black technologies that use ERP to deliver goods have also been blocked by Amazon. I would like to emphasize here that this time Amazon clearly stated when releasing the news that it will carefully review the relevance of listings and categories. Sellers cannot change category nodes and will face store closure if the product does not match the category. Don't act rashly, this time you are at gunpoint and the consequences are serious.

Amazon's move was very hasty, and it is clear that the severity of the epidemic in the United States is beyond imagination. So far, the number of infections in the United States has exceeded 6,421, and the death toll has exceeded 100. The governor of New York said at a press conference on the 17th local time that the number of confirmed cases in New York has soared to 1,374, making it the area with the most serious epidemic in the United States.

Under the severe impact of the epidemic, the U.S. stock market set a historical record of three circuit breakers in two weeks. The Dow Jones Index even fell back to the level before and after Trump took office. Even Warren Buffett, the stock god, exclaimed, "I have never seen such a situation in my life."

Under such circumstances, Trump announced an economic stimulus plan of up to 1.2 trillion US dollars on the 17th local time! It also includes the direct issuance of 250 billion US dollars in cash checks to American citizens .

America's trillion dollar plan

According to an official spokesperson, the size of the trillion-dollar economic stimulus plan was initially discussed at $850 billion, including $300 billion for small business loans, $200 billion as a stabilization fund, and $250 billion for cash handouts to the public. However, during the discussion, the various expenses were further expanded, and the total size reached $1.2 trillion.

The $250 billion directly sent to the public is expected to be mailed out by the end of April. On average, each adult citizen will receive a check of no less than $1,000 to alleviate the cash flow shortage of the American people caused by the epidemic. If the epidemic is still severe by then, a second check of the same amount will be mailed out four weeks later.

Of course, this money is not distributed without reason, because the cost of COVID-19 testing in the United States is as high as more than one thousand US dollars, resulting in a large number of symptomatic patients being unwilling to spend money on testing. Senior officials of the US CDC directly stated at the hearing that 40% of Americans cannot even come up with $400 for emergency expenses.

Under this drastic measure, the US stock market began to rebound. It has to be said that this wave of economic stimulus plan is really stimulating.

The U.S. stock market may experience various ups and downs in the near future, but overall it will continue to fall. There are too many things involved. If you are interested, I will open a separate issue to talk about it. For now, let’s think about what we cross-border sellers should do in such a crisis?

A brief outlook on the cross-border industry

Recently, many sellers in our seller communication group have reported that their orders have dropped significantly, and some are less than one-tenth of the usual level.

Just like Amazon's suspension of warehouse entry, the recent abnormal decline in orders is also closely related to the raging epidemic in the U.S. The U.S. economy has been hit by the epidemic, and Americans' spending power and desire will decline as a result.

However, this is only a temporary situation. Combined with the situation at the beginning of the year, both physical stores and online e-commerce are difficult to operate during the epidemic. It's not that you are the only one who can't do it, but that everyone can't do it.

Once the epidemic shows signs of ending, suppressed consumer demand and desire will rebound strongly. Now that our domestic epidemic situation has improved significantly, there are already some signs of retaliatory consumption.

The epidemic in the United States has just broken out and is still in a period of rapid growth. It is still some time away from the peak of the epidemic. Also, because our response strategies vary greatly, it is difficult to estimate when the epidemic in the United States will end.

Due to institutional reasons, the United States cannot implement large-scale lockdowns and restrict business operations, so the situation where people across the country are collectively confined to their homes is impossible in the United States. At least Amazon is still expanding recruitment, adding 100,000 full-time/part-time positions to ensure the normal operation of the entire platform during the epidemic.

So I estimate that even at the peak of the epidemic, there will still be many companies in the United States that maintain a certain degree of work. Amazon will be one of them. Not to mention guaranteeing timeliness, at least the goods can be shipped.

Crisis is a crisis. There are both dangers and opportunities. This opportunity is for sellers who have made preparations during the epidemic. During this period, we can do the following:

1. Maintain product rankings. Although orders have decreased, as long as the rankings do not change much, it means that everyone is not doing well. Maintaining the current position of your products will allow you to make a good profit in the wave of retaliatory consumption.

2. New product development and team sedimentation. The domestic economy has basically recovered during this period, so you can do a good research and develop some new products. If it is a category with non-restricted shipments such as medical and personal care, you can also send FBA in advance to occupy the market.

3. Maintain an account and good product reviews. While American consumers are busy dealing with the epidemic, optimizing product reviews can also help your products soar after the epidemic ends.

Now is a veritable cross-border winter, but as the spokesperson of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, " No winter can last forever, and spring will eventually come ."