General

Since the beginning of May, the Amazon platform has been centrally managed, and a large number of Amazon sellers have been banned. Many cross-border e-commerce companies have suffered greatly. The biggest reason for this situation is that sellers violated Amazon's platform rules. According to statistics, this time many Chinese sellers were subject to bans, involving total annual sales of 1 billion U.S. dollars. Most of the penalties were brand-type sellers in South China, mainly dealing in 3C electronic products, but also related to daily use, Home furnishings, sports categories.

It is reported that the scope of Amazon’s ban will continue to expand, from head sellers to waist sellers. It can be seen that Amazon has become more and more determined in cracking down on violations of platform rules. Amazon’s current round of compliance governance is the deepest in recent years. The most extensive one.

In this wave of bans, in addition to billions of super sellers such as Patosun, Tongtuo, Zebao, and Youkeshu, some mid-tail sellers have also been shut down, including CLP Hengye and Shenzhen. Ruitai, Shenzhen Hess, Guangzhou Taiyang, Mengzhituo, Wofeng Outdoor, Hangya e-commerce, etc. Recently, the South China Morning Post reported that Amazon has blocked at least 50,000 stores of Chinese sellers.

What's even more frightening is that while Amazon hurts its killer, part of its capital is "drawing money" from sellers in order to stop losses in a timely manner. According to statistics from the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, the total losses caused by this round of banning exceeded RMB 100 billion.

After the account of a Shenzhen company was blocked by Amazon, the capital that had raised 150 million from it immediately drew out the funds, causing the company's capital chain to break and it had no choice but to declare bankruptcy.

Amazon is both a referee and an athlete

Amazon's own "closed store rate" is not low. According to statistics from industry insiders, Amazon’s percentage of stores closed for 5 consecutive years has reached 35%, while the percentage of some mainstream e-commerce platforms in China is about 8%~10%, and that of some other e-commerce platforms with higher barriers to entry in the United States. The ratio will even be as low as about 1%.

In fact, Amazon’s history has also had multiple “store closures” aimed at Chinese sellers. The first happened in 2015, targeting domestic wedding dress sellers, and then successively targeting sellers of balance bikes, power banks and masks. Some insiders in cross-border e-commerce have summed up the characteristics of these four bans and accused Chinese sellers on issues such as product patents and quality for a specific product.

Industry insiders pointed out that some domestic sellers do have the problem of whether they strictly abide by Amazon's rules, but Amazon blocks Chinese sellers based on platform rules. In addition to some sellers who are indeed "mislisted", it also involves whether the rules themselves are clear and fair. When Amazon implements the rules, Whether to selectively enforce the law or even use it as a tool to suppress Chinese brands. "Because Amazon is both a referee and an athlete."

According to observations, Amazon’s bans are often concentrated around the time of big sales. For example, this ban started before Prime Day’s big sales. It usually takes 1 to 3 months to unblock the account, which will miss the peak sales season. This involves the issue of Amazon's platform strategy, because Amazon's self-operated platform is also constantly launching its own brands. For example, if Chinese sellers find that Chinese sellers sell more popular electric toothbrushes and hair dryers, Amazon will launch its own brands in a targeted manner.

In fact, accounts that have been blocked in the past may still be unblocked, and the unblocking ratio can reach 60 to 70%, but 30 to 40% of the accounts may be blocked forever, and this time the ratio of unblocked accounts It seems to be relatively low. A number of top sellers reported that the current accounts have not been unblocked.

On August 13, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce held a cross-border e-commerce enterprise symposium on the impact of the recent Amazon collective store closure on sellers. Representatives of participating companies revealed to the 21st Century Business Herald that the Shenzhen Municipal Government’s support policy for cross-border e-commerce sellers may be announced in the future.

According to the reporter’s knowledge from the representatives of sellers who participated in the forum, the Shenzhen government mainly understood the negative impact of Amazon’s store closure on cross-border e-commerce export enterprises and what difficulties it has caused to the normal production and operation of enterprises. What “self-rescue” measures have been taken, and what kind of help Amazon sellers hope the government can provide.

Approximately 20 or 30 Shenzhen local seller companies participated in this symposium. In addition to the large sellers most affected by the Amazon store closure incident, there were also representatives of many medium-sized sellers attending the conference.

"However, the specific support provided by the government is not mentioned at the meeting. It may be announced in the future." Representatives of participating sellers revealed to reporters. "In general, many companies believe that they have been treated unfairly by the Amazon platform. I look forward to the policy support very much."

Statistics from the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association show that since May, the loss of China's e-commerce industry caused by Amazon's store closure is estimated to exceed 100 billion yuan. Top Amazon sellers such as Patosun, Tongtuo, Zebao, and Youkeshu were all affected.

It is worth mentioning that on August 9th, Shenzhen issued a notice "Encouraging companies to develop individual cross-border e-commerce projects through independent sites to select the best funding 2 million" notice, encouraging cross-border e-commerce companies to develop independent site business. An independent station is different from a shopping website with an independent domain name built by the seller on the Amazon e-commerce platform, and is a popular online shopping channel in overseas regions such as Europe and the United States.