This week, # cross-border e-commerce welcomes the peak sales season # has become a hot topic in the circle, but it is completely different from the topic itself. Many sellers said that they did not feel the so-called peak season atmosphere.

Yesterday, though, Amazon signaled the peak season — it charged its first peak-season storage fee of the holiday season, three times the usual amount. In the absence of a significant increase in sales, sellers are quite distressed by this expense, and some sellers have storage costs as high as five figures.

On the other hand, Amazon ’s FBA warehouse explosion is becoming more and more serious. It is difficult to make reservations in popular warehouses such as ONT8. It is also common for warehouses to place fewer orders and delete orders. A few warehouses are temporarily rejected, and the warehousing appointment time of some warehouses has been scheduled to two weeks later. , the industry said this is the most serious delivery difficulties in recent years.

The storage capacity is also fluctuating, and the delivery limit is superimposed on the storage cost. The seller faces challenges in the cost of stocking and the route. At this time, Amazon has begun to promote the official overseas warehouse AWD. What do the sellers think about this?

Amazon charges storage fees for October peak season

Yesterday, Amazon deducted the storage fee for October from sellers’ accounts, and sellers said they were hit:

"The storage fee has just been deducted in October, and it is three times the usual amount. In the evening, you can only boil water and make steamed buns;"

"I deducted the money today, and found that the balance has been reduced by more than half, which hurts;"

"It's really painful to deduct the storage fee. It's obvious that you can grab it directly, and I have to tell you that this is a necessary expense during the peak season;"

"The peak season is not busy, but it will not delay my brother-in-law asking you for storage fees in the peak season"

…

From October to December every year, Amazon's storage fee is charged at three times the usual rate, which is also the peak sales period for cross-border e-commerce. At this time last year, some sellers had a storage fee of up to $100,000 in October, which was a lot of money.

In previous years, orders have skyrocketed, and most sellers can accept the extra fees. However, this year, sellers generally report that the current peak season is very weak, sales are mediocre, and the cost to bear is not much at all. Therefore, some sellers ridicule that the storage fee is the only reason to feel in the peak season so far. .

Previously, Amazon stipulated that during the period from October to December, the monthly storage fee for standard-sized products in the United States was $2.4/cubic foot, and the storage excess fee was $10/cubic foot; the monthly storage fee for the UK station was 0.91 pounds/cubic foot, storage The overage fee is £7.8/cubic foot; the fees for French, German, Italian, and western stations are 36 euros/cubic meter and 320 euros/cubic meters respectively; the monthly storage fee in Japan is 9.170 yen × product size (cubic meter) ×Storage days/days in the current month.

At the beginning of this year, Amazon US adjusted the monthly FBA storage fee. From February 1, 2022, the off-peak monthly inventory storage fee (January to September) began to increase, of which the standard size product increased by $0.08/cubic foot, and the oversized product Add $0.05/cubic foot for size products. Charges remain unchanged during the peak season from October to December.

According to this billing basis, warehousing costs are high in peak season, and sellers can no longer take it lightly. One seller's monthly inventory storage fee exceeded 10,000 US dollars, and he bluntly said that he "is about to close himself"; another seller was charged a storage fee of 68,000 US dollars, equivalent to about 500,000 yuan.

Some sellers calculated an account, and the storage fee in the peak season tripled in three months, which is equivalent to 9 months of fees, plus the first 9 months, that is, Amazon charged 18 months of storage fees in a year. , it can be said to win Ma.

During the current peak season, the inventory prepared by sellers for Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, Christmas, New Year and other sales festivals has been put into the warehouse one after another. At this time, stores with a high inventory turnover rate and few slow-moving products face less pressure on storage costs. A person from a large-selling company said that there are not many slow-moving products, often because the inventory is not enough to sell, and the platform cannot receive too many of them. Storage fee.

In addition to this, sellers also need to pay attention to the long-term storage fee at the end of the month. From May 15 this year , Amazon began to levy an expired inventory surcharge for products that have been stored in the fulfillment center for 271 to 365 days; for products that have been stored for more than 365 days, Amazon will continue to charge an obsolete inventory surcharge, that is, long-term storage fees.

Entering the peak season, expenses such as storage costs and distribution costs have risen layer by layer, but traffic growth has been sluggish or even worse than usual, which has discouraged some sellers. However, after the deduction of the storage fee, sellers will consciously speed up their sales. For those who are limited by the storage capacity, this may be an opportunity for Amazon to release more inventory.

But at present, even sellers with permitted storage capacity face considerable difficulties in the stage of goods warehousing.

The FBA warehouse is seriously bursting, and it is difficult to make an appointment for the warehouse

Recently, there has been feedback from freight forwarders that due to the recent serious explosion of Amazon's warehouses, warehouses frequently fail to release contracts and delete contracts without reason. Among them , 0NT8, GYR2, and GYR3 have a greater impact; another freight forwarding company also said that Amazon's popular warehouses continue to be out of stock. , including 0NT8, LGB8, LAX9, SBD1, SNA4, LGB6, etc., and the situation has become more serious recently. It has been difficult to make an appointment or the appointment has been delayed. Some warehouses have been scheduled for 20 days.

Yien.com further confirmed the situation to several freight forwarders.

Mr. Chen, a freight forwarder in Shenzhen, said that reducing storage capacity is a routine operation in peak seasons, but due to layoffs and a halt to recruitment, it is even more obvious that Amazon's warehouses are currently understaffed. Many warehouses do not release appointments for delivery, and it is difficult to find an appointment in the market.

"The deletion situation is more serious than in previous years, mainly in the western region of the United States, such as ONT8, LGB8, LAX9, SMF3, SBD1, GYR3, SCK4 these popular warehouses, the most serious ones are LAX9, /9, /6, SCK4, OAK3, SBD3, and TEB6 in the US East all have different degrees of cancellation and non-letting."

Another forwarder, Ivy, also confirmed the status quo. "Currently, there is a serious explosion of warehouses in the United States and West. Now all appointments are Pending, and the number of appointments for delivery cannot be obtained, and appointments are frequently changed, deleted, and postponed. Now the time to make appointments is approaching December. There are too many Amazons. The warehouse was full, and the sub-warehouses were sent to very remote places."

As for the reason, she believes that there are too many goods in the warehouse on Black Friday, and Amazon can't handle it. In addition, Amazon's closure of some warehouses also has a certain impact.

No delivery is possible without an appointment. At present, warehousing and delivery personnel are working hard to brush and buy appointments. In the Amazon buying appointment group, people are begging for an appointment, and one of them bluntly said: "Which one has a blown tire, a broken water tank, an air leak and oil leak, and the direction is extremely locked. Can't go to delivery temporarily? Or if you are lazy and want to give it away but don’t want to go, don’t hesitate to sell it to me and I will carry the burden for you and ask for a high price!”

Mr. Chen said that the warehousing appointment in previous years was not so difficult. This was the most serious one in several years. Even on Xiaohongshu, he received some news about buying appointments, which shows the difficulty of making appointments.

At present, many Amazon warehouses have sold out, deleted or not released contracts, and a few warehouses have even temporarily rejected them. Due to the lack of appointments, the long delivery fleet in front of the Amazon warehouse has disappeared, and only a very small number of vehicles are waiting to enter the warehouse.

Mr. Chen's company's overseas delivery staff filmed the empty scene outside the ONT8 warehouse in the video. He said: " Ont8 at 6 in the morning, there is a large queue at this time in the past, and now it is cold inside, there are no cars, so there is no need to queue . "

( outside ONT8 warehouse )

In fact, Amazon has repeatedly cut inventory recently, which has affected the stocking plans of many sellers. But the strange thing is that even if the storage capacity is limited, the liquidation situation has not eased, and even worsens. Amazon's own competitive advantage is to quickly deliver packages to customers. Now that warehouse staff is reduced and more goods are added, it will inevitably affect the customer experience.

How long will this difficult delivery situation last? Mr. Chen said that this year is not expected to be good, and he can only watch it in the second half of the year. Ivy believes that the situation is not easy to ease in the short term, and Christmas is coming in December, and it is estimated that it will be difficult to enter the warehouse in the near future.

This reminds sellers that it is necessary to properly advance the next stocking, so as not to delay the warehousing and affect the sales. Judging from the current delayed delivery situation, the more optimistic situation is that the warehousing time of the goods is delayed by 5-10 days, but if the warehouse bursting situation continues or continues to deteriorate, the waiting time for the goods to warehousing may continue to extend.

In the case of repeated storage capacity, Amazon sellers' demand for overseas warehouses has greatly increased. Last month, Amazon launched its AWD network ( AWD). A seller said bluntly: "Amazon restricts the storage capacity, most likely to push this official overseas warehouse, forcing everyone to send a large part of FBA's goods to AWD storage."

Amazon AWD is online, cheaper than third-party overseas warehouses?

Last month, Amazon announced the launch of the warehousing distribution network (AWD). The platform said that it can save the seller's FBA storage capacity without warehousing restrictions.

According to Amazon's introduction, AWD can help sellers to send and store their inventory to Amazon's AWD warehouse (near FBA warehouse) through third-party cross-border logistics and Amazon cross-border logistics service (AGL), and according to the inventory situation of FBA warehouse, timely automatic replenishment. Help the seller's FBA warehouse to keep the goods, and it is not limited by the storage capacity!

(Image sourced from Amazon)

According to the platform, sellers who use AWD warehouses can get two major benefits:

1. Automatic replenishment . Sellers can automatically replenish their inventory to the FBA warehouse without worrying about returns due to insufficient space in the FBA warehouse, and as long as the AWD distribution center has inventory for automatic replenishment, the seller's ASIN will be in stock on Amazon.

2. Realize global inventory monitoring . AWD provides a delivery network for sellers' orders by integrating offline logistics warehousing and online logistics systems, allowing sellers to monitor their own inventory and check the progress of goods transportation at any time.

At that time, many sellers paid attention to the news and tried to apply for registration. In the past two days, sellers sent feedback one after another. Some sellers have calculated the usage fee and feel that the price is relatively cheap.

A seller said that an explosion model being sold is ready to use AWD satellite warehouse, the product is small in size and light in weight. According to the specific size, the cost of storing a box in the satellite warehouse for one month is about 4 US dollars, and the cost of storing one piece for one month is equivalent to RMB 1.4; It is much more cost-effective to ship large quantities of goods to satellite warehouses by sea than to send FBA by air, and there is no need to worry about out of stock.

Another seller also has the same opinion, that AWD is indeed cheaper and the charges are more transparent.

However, many sellers have different views. A seller said bluntly: " AWD is Amazon's self-operated overseas warehouse. It is a service created by the platform for profit. The price is not ordinary ! "

Regarding the issue of fees, Amazon also explained that AWD adopts a "pay-as-you-go" pricing strategy, and sellers only need to pay for the part they use. There are 3 specific costs:

1. Storage fee: Amazon charges according to the daily usage, and charges according to the cubic feet of the space used, once a month. $0.42 per cubic foot per month from January to September and $0.8 per cubic foot per month from October to December;

2. Processing fee : USD 2 per box for all delivery and transportation activities of the goods in Amazon's warehousing distribution network ;

3. Shipping fee : For boxes replenished from Amazon 's warehousing distribution network to the FBA warehouse, the shipping fee is charged per cubic foot, $1 per cubic foot.

According to the current feedback, sellers believe that the use of AWD should be divided into specific situations. Relatively speaking, small and light products will have certain advantages. clear.

According to industry insiders, when I asked an official Amazon person, the other party’s explanation on the warehouse and price is that Amazon AWD is equivalent to a front warehouse of FBA, and the price of the third party is not comparable, because the third party has a replacement standard. fee, AWD does not. At present, AWD can be shipped through AGL and third-party freight forwarders, which is equivalent to an upgraded version of satellite warehouses.

It is understood that after the seller's product enters the AWD warehouse, if the product is out of stock, the system will automatically replenish the product to the FBA warehouse, and the seller can also manually replenish the product. AWD warehousing is not limited by storage capacity or quantity, and is currently only applicable to US stations.

However, many sellers have not yet used AWD, and are more in a wait-and-see mentality. In addition to the cost issue, everyone is concerned about issues such as stability and operation time.

The specific usage of AWD has yet to be verified. When the excess storage fee is incurred in the peak season, some sellers ask questions. Can the FBA excess inventory be moved to AWD by reverse operation? The official reply to this: No. Want to scour Amazon's wool during the peak season, the seller is obviously still thinking too beautiful!

Perhaps as one seller said: "Amazon's introduction of AWD is to know more and more how to make money from sellers in the peak season. However, sellers are not making money in this year's peak season!"

Cross-border e-commerce welcomes peak sales season?Seller: no idea

This week #cross-border e-commerce welcomes the peak sales season# has become a hot topic. Several cross-border sellers talked about their current situation on this topic. On the whole, most people said that apart from the feeling of a peak season for storage fees, they did not feel the peak season in other aspects. Only some sellers said that there was a slight increase, or that they had begun to see a good growth.

CCTV Finance reported that due to the approaching of traditional western shopping seasons such as "Black Friday" and Christmas, China's cross-border e-commerce has ushered in a peak sales season, and manufacturers and merchants are busy stocking up. According to customs statistics, my country's cross-border e-commerce import and export scale has increased nearly 10 times in five years.

Many cross-border sellers bluntly said that they did not feel the peak season at all, and felt that we were not the same cross-border e-commerce. A seller is helpless: " Everyone is comparing prices and opening large coupons, but there is no increase in the number of orders ." More sellers have the same feedback:

"—worse than last month;

– did not feel the peak season, it was the same as usual;

– 6 days zero eggs;

——Only feel the popularity of acos;

– The order quantity is getting smaller and smaller;

——I haven't seen the order in November;

– This month is the worst of the year;

——The order volume has been decreasing, which is quite different from previous years;

——After the autumn promotion, the orders have been falling, and the whole is incomparable with the previous one, and the sales volume has been reduced by 1/3;

——It feels like last year, the peak season has passed before I feel the peak season. "

The order and traffic of cross-border sellers have not increased, and the reason behind it is that the purchasing desire of American consumers is decreasing. It is understood that U.S. consumers have slashed spending on goods this holiday season, leading some retailers to realize that the days ahead will be tougher.

Under inflation, more shoppers have no money to spend, and many are unemployed and have no income. The survey showed that consumers were less willing to spend during the holidays, especially as higher prices for essentials like groceries and gas kept shoppers spending less on their budgets.

Americans keep spending by lowering their savings and increasing credit card debt, said Tim Quinlan, a senior economist at Wells Fargo . But soon they will realize that it is not right, that they are spending more than they are earning, and it will not last long.

Consumer demand has dropped, and both offline and offline will be affected accordingly. A wave of U.S. retailers teetering on the brink of bankruptcy sells categories familiar to domestic sellers, such as home, bedding, and apparel. Under the impact of the epidemic, old companies that have been in business for a long time are unsustainable. It can be seen that the current market conditions are indeed very cold.

On the online front, platforms such as Walmart and Target are vigorously clearing the backlog of inventory; due to the slowdown in e-commerce business growth, Amazon announced a lower-than-expected year-end forecast in late October, and the company also announced that it would stop hiring for most positions.

In this case, many sellers naturally cannot feel the peak season, but some sellers do see an increase in order volume and sales.

Some sellers reported that the traffic of the US station has not changed much at present, but the sales of the European station began to climb in October. There are also some sellers in the United States that have ushered in growth. It feels like a peak season from this week or November, and orders and traffic have ushered in a certain increase.

A seller said that the peak season is coming in November, and orders and traffic have rebounded significantly in recent days, and sellers in a similar situation have also seen an increase in orders this week.

However, some sellers whose orders have risen are still unhappy, and they have all experienced a decline in profits. A seller introduced: "In the previous peak season, the order volume and profit rose together. Now even if the order volume has increased, the price has also increased. In addition, Amazon's storage fees, advertising fees and other expenses have risen, and the profit in the peak season is bleak. It's basically the same with my peers."

The peak season is here. For many sellers, the increase may not be the order, but the storage fee!