General

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, on March 23, a Wal Mart spokesman confirmed that the company's five e-commerce order fulfillment centers in the United States will lay off hundreds of people, and the laid-off employees can find jobs in other stores of the company with pay within 90 days. The spokesman refused to call this a large-scale layoff, and said that the warehouse continued to operate normally. Wal Mart did not issue a warning to other locations, because the total number of employees who would eventually be fired and re hired was not yet determined.

On March 20th, the global cross-border e-commerce giant Amazon announced that it plans to lay off another 9000 people in the next few weeks. This is Amazon's second large-scale layoff this year, after laying off 18000 people in January. Adding to this layoff, Amazon has cut at least 27000 employees this year.

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, in February, Alibaba Group released its fourth quarter financial report for 2022, in which the total number of employees of Alibaba has attracted a lot of attention. As of the end of 2022, the total number of employees of Alibaba was 239700, compared to 259300 at the end of the previous year. In other words, throughout 2022, the number of employees of Alibaba Group decreased by 19576.

The world's e-commerce giants began to lay off more or less employees last year, which means that after nearly 20 years of rapid expansion, the e-commerce industry has entered a stage of declining global economic development and gradually slowing industry development. Reducing staff, reducing costs, and improving efficiency are the first strategies most companies think of, and e-commerce giants cannot avoid the trend.

According to the observation report of Huacheng Import and Export Data, the annual growth of global e-commerce sales in 2022 is expected to be 12.2%, with a year-on-year decrease of 4.1%, especially the significant decrease in profits. According to the annual financial report released recently by Amazon, Amazon's net loss in 2022 reached 2.7 billion US dollars, setting the worst record in history, far inferior to its net profit of 33.364 billion US dollars in 2021, which is equivalent to losing more than one; Amazon released its fourth quarter financial report for the 2022 fiscal year in March this year, showing that Amazon's net sales in the fourth quarter were $149204 million, up 9% from $137412 million a year earlier; Net profit was $278 million, down 98% from $14.323 billion a year earlier. In addition to Amazon, other leading e-commerce platforms have also encountered revenue constraints and declining profits. In 2022, the US e-commerce giant eBay's annual revenue was $9.775 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 6%. After adjustment, its net profit was $2.312 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 13%; In 2022, the total annual net income of Wayfair, a home e-commerce platform in Europe and the United States, was $12.2 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 10.9%, and a net loss of $1.3 billion, a tenfold increase in losses; The German e-commerce giant Zalando recorded a revenue of 10.34 billion euros last year, a decrease of 0.1% compared to 2021, and its net profit decreased to 16.8 million euros from 234.5 million euros in 2021.

As the restrictions on shopping caused by the global COVID-19 epidemic recede, more and more consumers return to physical stores for shopping; Last year, due to the cloud of inflation enveloping the world, the overall purchasing desire of the global market is declining; In the past six months, new platforms, including Temu and TikTok, have risen rapidly, streaming live streaming and delivering goods online, diverting market share from traditional e-commerce, leading to more intense competition in the overall e-commerce environment. Recently, Yan Weihua, a partner of Anci Capital, predicted that the growth rate of global e-commerce sales will gradually decline from 2022 onwards, mainly due to the large volume of global e-commerce.

Sales growth coincided with a sharp decline in net profit, indicating the intense and deteriorating competitive environment for global e-commerce. With the sharp decline in profits, reducing costs and reducing personnel have become the company's primary choice to reverse the situation. As Amazon CEO Andy Jesse stated in a statement released on the company's website recently, Amazon has hired a large number of employees in the past few years, but the uncertain economic outlook in the future has forced the company to choose to cut costs and personnel. The company plans to make a final decision and notify the laid-off personnel before mid to late April. In this regard, Yan Weihua recently said that the global e-commerce development inflection point signal appeared after the COVID-19. Compared with 2021, the global online e-commerce consumption growth slowed significantly in 2022, and e-commerce entered a new stage of competition. From a platform perspective, from the second half of 2022 to this year, both Amazon and other large enterprises are further streamlining costs through significant layoffs and spending control. In this situation, it indicates that platform sellers will face increasing pressure on rising fees and costs in the future. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation reports.

However, Zhang Kuao, President of Alibaba International Station, believes that the current international market demand is gradually recovering. From the perspective of different countries and markets, the consumer confidence index in the European and American markets is recovering, while the demand for non consumer goods such as building materials, machinery and equipment in ASEAN and the Middle East region is growing rapidly. The changes in overseas market demand also present different industry opportunities on Alibaba International Station. For example, orders for new energy vehicle related products are booming. Currently, new energy vehicle charging piles are the highest conversion rate of foreign trade commodities on Alibaba International Station, and overseas demand surged by 218% in March this year. Yan Weihua affirmed that the e-commerce industry still has broad prospects, because the efficiency and growth of global e-commerce must still be far higher than traditional commercial and retail industries, both in terms of scale and growth. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.