Since 2021, Amazon sellers have been burdened with huge cost pressures brought by the three mountains of RMB exchange rate, raw material prices, and international shipping costs. Since 2022, due to the impact of the domestic epidemic, sellers have encountered difficulties in the production and transportation of goods. And another recent email notification from Amazon has made sellers’ poor profits even worse.

1. Amazon charges a 5% surcharge

Recently, Amazon officially announced that starting April 28, it will impose a 5% fuel and inflation surcharge on U.S. sellers who use Amazon’s logistics service FBA. "The surcharge will apply to all product types, such as apparel, hazmat, small and light items, etc., for all products shipped from FBA fulfillment centers," the notice said.

Data show that, affected by the Russian-Ukrainian incident, global energy prices have continued to rise. Energy prices rose 11% month-on-month in March and a year-on-year growth rate of 32%. Among them, fuel prices rose by 22% month-on-month, and gasoline prices rose by 18.3% month-on-month. For Amazon, which has a massive transportation system, soaring energy prices have added to the burden on Amazon's operations. U.S. inflation is soaring. The latest data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the US consumer price index (CPI) rose by 8.5% year-on-year in March, the highest level since 1981, and a month-on-month increase of 1.2%, the largest increase since 2005. Prices have been rising, and inflation has been above 6% for six months in a row. Therefore, American workers have been raising their requirements for wages and treatment, which also makes companies have to increase wage expenditures. Amazon said in the announcement that the average hourly wage for U.S. employees has climbed from $15 to $18. It can be seen that Amazon is trying to offset some of its own costs by passing the fee on to sellers as global energy prices soar and U.S. inflation soars.

2. Tiktok global store is fully opened

Recently, the Tiktok global store finally announced the news! Officially open from April 25th! Malaysian, Vietnamese, Filipino and Thai users can place orders directly in the store in the UK, and all exchange rates are automatically converted to the local exchange rate in the backstage of the store! It only needs a small shop in the UK to manage it! The one-store-through global TikTok store has finally officially opened.

TikTok Global Store

3. The new strategy of FOBGOODS

Recently, FOBGOODS also officially announced that the use of SAAS service technology will usher in a major revision! It is understood that FOBGOODS, a Shenzhen-based company, is positioned as a global B2B business information display platform, and has also been praised as a B2B business information display platform with strong growth by many foreign trade industry information. This new strategy not only makes the business framework structure quick SEO inclusion to get traffic, but also provides a very big opportunity for many B-end factories and brand businesses to convert traffic to conversion in Tiktok. Judging from the current situation of the foreign trade industry, more and more merchants have begun to seek new ways and strategies to deploy Tiktok and FOBGOODS.

Image source: Baidu search

Under the background that the country strongly supports Chinese manufacturing and Chinese brands go overseas, what do you think the future prospects of foreign trade are?