Fall To The Peak: 50000 Businesses Save Themselves Under The "Closure Tide" Of Amazon

Some Amazon sellers engaged in cross-border e-commerce have fallen to the bottom from the "overnight wealth" of last year.

Recently, a notice about the Symposium on cross-border e-commerce enterprises organized by the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce has been circulated among the public. At noon on August 13, the relevant staff of the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce responded, and there was indeed a survey meeting. It is reported that the investigation team of Guangdong Provincial Department of Commerce went to Shenzhen to learn about the impact of Amazon's "store closure tide" on cross-border e-commerce enterprises, so as to formulate relevant measures to help the affected enterprises out of their predicament.

Cross border e-commerce industry is on the cusp again. After all, before that, the domestic cross-border e-commerce industry once became the pronoun of "overnight wealth". This year, as the world's largest e-commerce platform, Amazon's sudden closure has attracted global attention. As early as April this year, Amazon has begun to move, and has continued until July, the vigorous action of closing stores has not stopped. Many well-known big sellers have been affected by the storm and suffered heavy losses, which has made cross-border e-commerce sellers on pins and needles.

"Last year, some people really made a lot of money. I've seen the most powerful sales on Amazon. Com, with a monthly turnover of 100 million. Last year, a myth of "wealth" was staged. Some companies, founded last year, have entered round B financing. There are not a few small owners who buy luxury houses and drive luxury cars in Shenzhen Bay. However, this year, there are a lot of half dead people in the industry due to the title issue. Some sellers have been trying to find ways to help themselves actively, speed up shipment, or switch to other platforms. Some sellers are tortured to give up the struggle completely. " Mr. Xu (not his real name) is an Amazon platform seller who is engaged in clothing industry in Shenzhen. He started from traditional foreign trade clothing and has just entered cross-border e-commerce for two years. He told the 21st century economic reporter frankly.

Amazon's "store closure tide" makes cross-border e-commerce industry stand on the "crest of the storm" again- Visual China

The myth of making "rich"

Since last year, the recurrence of the epidemic and the formation of consumer habits have been driving the growth of online demand. In the face of the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, the rise of "housing economy" is reshaping the global living and consumption habits. The export of computers, smart phones, household appliances, furniture and clothing and other related products has continued to grow, and cross-border e-commerce has seen an adverse growth.

According to the data report of China's cross border e-commerce market in 2020, the scale of China's cross-border e-commerce market will reach 12.5 trillion yuan in 2020, with a year-on-year growth of 19.04%. The number of import and export bills issued through the customs cross-border e-commerce management platform reached 2.45 billion, an increase of 63.3% year-on-year.

Among them, during the "double 11" period in 2020, 52.27 million import and export bills were processed through the unified import and export system of Customs cross-border e-commerce, an increase of 25.5% over the previous year; The peak of processing list reached 3407 votes / second, an increase of 113.2%, and all indicators reached a new high.

Looking back on the development process of global cross-border e-commerce industry, we can find that cross-border e-commerce developed from traditional foreign trade to foreign trade e-commerce, and then further developed into cross-border e-commerce. The development of cross-border e-commerce has been only 20-30 years. With the rapid improvement of Internet technology, cross-border e-commerce has shown explosive growth.

In the past 20 years, China's cross-border e-commerce has gone through four stages from germination to growth, from expansion to maturity. At present, China's cross-border e-commerce industry is accelerating the process of foreign trade innovation and development, and has become a new engine of China's foreign trade development.

However, the entry threshold of cross-border e-commerce is not high. Whether it is the education background of employees or the basic conditions set by the industry, it is not so "high" as it seems.

Mr. Xu told the 21st century economic reporter that it is because of the low threshold of starting a business that more and more people are attracted to join. Many of his colleagues are college graduates. Many people think that the industry has language requirements. In fact, in practice, it is not difficult to be familiar with the platform and trading rules.

"In terms of store construction and operation, in addition to basic information such as business license, ID card and dual currency credit card, there is no need to register Amazon store itself. The main expenses are bookkeeping agent and tax declaration, which costs about 2000 yuan a year; In terms of monthly rent, it can be divided into individual seller plan and professional seller plan. Individual seller plan means that each product sold needs to pay Amazon $0.99 and pay as much as you sell. No matter how much you sell or how little you sell, the monthly rent is fixed at $39.99. " Xu told reporters.

The entry threshold is getting lower and lower, which further leads to the increasing number of players in cross-border e-commerce track.

So far, the players of domestic cross-border e-commerce track are mainly divided into three categories: export cross-border e-commerce, import cross-border e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce service providers. The import and export cross-border e-commerce is divided according to the standards of to B and to C. Cross border e-commerce service providers include comprehensive, logistics, payment, technology and marketing.

In the export cross-border e-commerce, the sellers of B2B export mode are mainly domestic producers and traders, while the buyers are mainly overseas traders, wholesale retailers, producers, online shop owners, etc. The third platform is the main way of B2B transactions. It not only provides the seller members with trade supply and demand information, but also provides bidding enterprise information for buyers through ranking, so as to promote the matching of supply and demand.

B2C mode is through the third-party platform and self built website to directly contact foreign terminal consumers for sale.

The third-party platforms mainly include Amazon, eBay, express express, wish and other mainstream cross-border platforms. The platforms charge corresponding fees (category Commission, warehousing and logistics service fees) according to the sales volume, which belongs to the relatively traditional cross-border export B2C seller mode. And the most affected sellers of this store closure tide are this batch of B2C practitioners.

Self built platform type: it mainly relies on the company's own e-commerce website or app for sales. Domestic export B2C self built platform companies are mostly e-commerce platforms of vertical categories such as clothing, 3C, home furnishing, such as gearbest, Shein, jollychic, etc.

In short, the biggest difference between the two platforms is the difference in traffic. Third party platform sellers can rely on their own station traffic, while self built platforms need to undertake the drainage work themselves.

"The global cross-border view of China, China's cross-border look at the broad and deep", this is the saying circulated in the industry for many years. In the development of China for more than 20 years, Guangzhou Shenzhen region, with its unique industrial and customs clearance advantages, has attracted many foreign trade enterprises to gather and join forward-looking industries one after another, driving the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce.

Among the 15 leading cities in the development of cross-border e-commerce, Guangzhou and Shenzhen rank top 2, and the three indexes all get high scores. This is the final conclusion of the "2020 urban development index of China cross border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone" based on three indicators including development foundation index, development scale index and development innovation index, The 105 cities in the comprehensive test area are divided into three categories: the leading cities (1-15), the backbone cities (16-50), and the potential cities (51-105).

As a national central city, Guangzhou is one of the first batch of comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot areas in China. It is also the first pilot city of Guangdong Province in terms of market procurement and trade. It is one of the cities with high concentration of new foreign trade and export formats. According to the information of Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce, more than 30000 cross-border e-commerce enterprises have gathered in Guangzhou.

In addition, Shenzhen is also one of the important gathering places. With its superior sea location, Shenzhen has attracted a large number of cross-border e-commerce companies to grow here, such as zongteng group, globegroup e-commerce, Ames, Aoji e-commerce, baoshijia, huanjin technology, global Yida, yougeshu, etc. At the same time, there are many international e-commerce platforms, such as shopee, Amazon, eBay, lazada, jumia, Joom, mymall, patpat, gearbest, Mercado Libre, etc., all of which have their headquarters in China.

According to the data of Shenzhen customs, in the first half of this year, the value of cross-border e-commerce goods supervised by Shenzhen Customs exceeded 100 billion, which has exceeded the total volume of last year, and continues to lead the country. Moreover, according to the "2021 (Part 1) China cross border e-commerce market data report" released by the e-commerce research center of e-commerce, there were 29 financing cases of domestic cross-border e-commerce in the first half of this year, up 222% year-on-year. Among the top ten enterprises with financing amount, half of them are located in Shenzhen, which are Xingyun group, air Yunhui, Aike technology, Yicang technology and Lingxing.

Dark hour

"The cross-border e-commerce industry has a lot of glory last year, but it will be miserable this year". This is a self mockery of the situation of cross-border e-commerce. After experiencing the adverse growth in 2020, domestic cross-border e-commerce did not continue yesterday's prosperity, but fell to the bottom.

The reason can be traced back to April this year, when Amazon launched the strictest "store closure wave" in history.

Amazon China is a B2C e-commerce website in China. In 2004, Amazon acquired excellence with a high profile of US $75 million, entered the Chinese market and established Amazon's Chinese subsidiary. At that time, Taobao had just been established for a year and a half, and was still in the entrepreneurial period. Jingdong is still in the process of Internet layout, and Amazon has occupied half of China's e-commerce with its perfect platform rules, large traffic volume and support for sellers. At present, on the Amazon platform, 70% of the sellers are from China, which is of great importance to Chinese sellers.

According to the statistics of Shenzhen cross border E-Commerce Association, more than 50000 Chinese businesses have been affected by the seal, and the industry loss is estimated to be more than 100 billion yuan, which has become the heaviest case of Amazon cracking down on domestic sellers.

Known as the "A-share cross-border first share", Amazon power seller's main account number was severely punished, the record of its brand mpow was cancelled by the platform, the funds were frozen and the account number was blocked.

Listed sellers Tianze information's "have a tree", nearly 340 sites have been closed, 130 million yuan of funds have been frozen.

Aoji, one of the "four little cities in South China", has lost a large number of links to its Amazon stores, and its account number has been blocked.

"Amazon has been a thing for a long time, and the whole industry has been howling. It's mainly Shenzhen sellers. Guangzhou is OK. Shenzhen sellers are more keen on brushing orders." A cross-border e-commerce seller in South China told the 21st century economic reporter.

According to Wang Xin, executive director of Shenzhen cross border E-Commerce Association, the closure of Amazon this time is "the highest in five years". She said that the seizure and freezing of sellers are not uncommon on overseas platforms such as lazada, eBay and Wal Mart, with the closure rate of 8% - 10%. This time, Amazon's blocking rate on platform accounts has reached 35%, and many of them are Chinese sellers. It has a great impact on the employees, funds, goods in transit and even some IPO companies which are going to be listed. The whole upstream and downstream industrial chain is deeply affected.

In response to the massive "title" incident, Amazon previously said that the vast majority of the titles were due to violations such as "improper use of comment function", "obtaining false comments from consumers" and "manipulating comments through gift cards" by the platform. In addition, actions will be taken to protect the legitimate rights and interests of customers and sellers.

At the same time, Amazon will quickly take measures against violations of mall rules: such as suspending or revoking sales rights. Amazon stressed that it is the responsibility of the platform to take such measures and to take corresponding actions in a rigorous and prudent manner to maintain a high-quality business environment.

In the industry, "improper use of comment function", "asking for false comments from consumers", "manipulating comments through gift cards" are collectively referred to as "swiping orders". This time, Amazon is carrying out a large-scale review of these "scalping" behaviors.

According to industry estimates, there will be more accounts closed by Amazon, at least 200000-300000 seller accounts have problems, which have been included in the scope of review.

A person in charge of a company specializing in complaints on Amazon platform told 21st century economic news: "Amazon has been conducting a systematic investigation recently. Many sellers have come to complain. If one brush is made, the problem will be easier to handle, and the second brush is basically hopeless."

This time, Amazon's "seal tide" has had a great impact on B2C sellers. B2C business is nothing more than sellers and consumers, different from B2B business to business model. For B2C sellers, improving the praise has become an important means of marketing and optimizing stores.

"Although all major platforms explicitly prohibit similar" bill swiping ", in the cross-border e-commerce circle, this has become a shortcut that no one knows," the aforementioned South China cross-border e-commerce practitioners told reporters.

Good evaluation will not only affect the ranking of individual products, but also the weight and performance of the whole store. Good evaluation can increase the repurchase rate and improve customer stickiness. From the buyer's point of view, evaluation is an important part of understanding the product. Most buyers will trust the products and stores with more visits and favorable comments.

And this large-scale platform review of Amazon, let these non-compliance increase praise "means" a wide range of exposure.

On July 22, the Ministry of Commerce responded. Li Xingqian, director general of the Department of foreign trade of the Ministry of Commerce, said at a press conference held by the office of the State Council of the people's Republic of China on the whole, this is a problem in the development of new foreign trade formats, a periodic "acclimatization" and "growing pains".

Previously, the cross-border e-commerce enterprise Tianze information also admitted that a number of cross-border e-commerce export enterprises, including yougeshu, ignored the compliance of platform store operation to a certain extent while pursuing the continuous expansion of market share, and some specific operation behaviors may be suspected of violating the operation rules of Amazon and other platforms.

Where is the way out?

The impact of Amazon's "store closure tide" is self-evident, so many sellers begin to rethink the rule of survival on the platform, and some sellers are also considering building their own independent stations rather than relying on the platform alone. In view of the "store closure tide", Shenzhen has also made corresponding measures.

On August 5, Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce issued a notice to encourage qualified enterprises to carry out cross-border e-commerce business through application of independent stations, and grant 2 million yuan to each project that meets the requirements and passes the evaluation.

Experts believe that Shenzhen's measures are intended to guide sellers to gain more dominant power through independent stations, so as to avoid the excessive dependence of cross-border e-commerce business on Amazon platform, so as to reduce the risk of export trade activities of emerging formats.

Independent station, as the name suggests, is a website with independent domain name. It is a self built platform outside of the third-party platform such as Amazon. For cross-border e-commerce, independent station can let them get rid of the shackles of the third party.

As mentioned above, the biggest difference between the two modes in actual operation is the traffic side. The sellers of the third-party platform can rely on the station traffic of the platform, while the self built platform needs to undertake the drainage.

The industry insiders also told the 21st century economic reporter frankly: "the independent station is not restricted by the rules, but the independent station itself has no customers. Customers need to deal with it by themselves. Promotion and drainage need a lot of capital investment, which is not easy."

At the beginning of July, the Guangdong cross border E-Commerce Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Guangdong cross border Association") launched the "Amazon Title Storm: is the era of full compliance of cross-border e-commerce coming?" Special seminar. At the meeting, experts pointed out that Amazon's crackdown on scalping actually reflects the non-compliance in the industry. However, corporate compliance is a very professional field. Cross border enterprises, especially small and medium-sized sellers without legal team, are faced with various legal risks in the country where the target market is located and numerous policies and rules of e-commerce platform, because there is no professional help, It is often difficult to do a good job in compliance. Therefore, Guangdong cross association is expected to set up a public welfare lawyer consulting team to escort the regular operation of the majority of cross-border e-commerce sellers. Intern Wen Ruonan reports from Guangzhou

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