There was a point in the year when it seemed like Chinese sellers were leaving Amazon- but that's not the case. Instead, they have regained the market share lost over the past two years and have even accounted for record-high sales rates in the US marketplace!
Marketplace Pulse's research shows that the Chinese sellers' seller reviews have returned to the same percentages as they were in November 2020. Each order typically generates a customer review, reaching millions per month, but only 1% to 5% of customers leave seller feedback. As a result, this analysis method can help estimate the directionality of sales mix changes.
American sellers increased their market share in November 2020; however, it didn't hold up past March 2022. Once the trend changed, Chinese sellers quickly recovered their lost market share.
So, what caused the decline in the first place?
Hong Yong, Ministry of Commerce-linked Associate Research Fellow, said, "Chinese foreign trade enterprises should avoid reliance on Amazon." So now, sellers are trying to diversify their revenue sources. Few alternatives (Walmart, eBay) are valuable, but to some extent, many sellers still depend on Amazon as their main source of revenue.
Although Amazon conducted mass suspensions of top Chinese sellers, and new marketplaces like Shein and Temu emerged, it didn't discourage them from selling on Amazon. After all, they're formidable competitors in the marketplace.
Key Bites:
Last year, Nasdaq announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), as reported by Markets Media. This is after completing its first market transfer to the Amazon cloud as part of a multi-year collaboration with AWS to convert all of its North American markets.
During Nasdaq's investor day, Brenda Hoffman, the division's chief technology officer, said they've been in the process of making this move for the past year. This includes the products and services that power the 25 primary trading markets it owns and manages.
It took 11 months to create Nasdaq's first market that went live on the cloud on November 7. A 10% increase in their metrics was seen on the first day, concluding its effectiveness. These results ultimately led to the collaboration with AWS continuing further this year.
Nasdaq's president and chief executive, Adena Friedman, said they're migrating to deliver products in a software-as-service (SaaS) format, turning themselves into a SaaS company. This is evident in their SaaS revenue which grew from $250 million in 2017 to $700 million today.
A seller took up grievances on LinkedIn about his account's suspension, apparently, in line with Section 3's Amazon Business Solutions Agreement (which says Amazon serves the right to end your relationship with them). The violations cited were activities against Seller Policies and Code of Conduct.
He shared that his business ships 100% of their orders in plain packaging with Amazon labelsーa testament to their efforts in complying with packaging guidelines. However, dropshipping is always tricky, and sellers who engage in this business model aren't always flagged. So it's still a headscratcher why others are suspended for this reason, even as they put in so much effort.
Appealing the suspension: OP submitted photos of the packaging, boxes, labels, and a detailed spreadsheet with order IDs, tracking numbers, shipment statuses, and invoices. After following up on their case three times and having support staff tell them everything looked right, they received an email saying they didn't have enough information. Now, they're frustrated about what happened.
Unfortunately, events like these are not isolated; sellers experience issues like these all year round. In this Reddit thread, a seller deals with the same situation. According to the post, they've seen cases where people get their products from a wholesaler/retailer to sell on FBM. Everything was legit on their end, but they, too, got their accounts suspended with the same violation.
So far, there are no other tips or resources for getting around this
It's now easier for advertisers to plan for Conversions, Views, Reach, and Impressions-based metrics through Google Ads Reach Planner. It can also forecast Video Action Campaigns (VACs), as tackled on Google's support page.
Reach Planner projects how your planned strategies might perform based on your target audience, budget, geography, and ad types. Market trends and results from previous campaigns will also be taken into consideration when making these forecasts.
When setting up your plans, you can put up "Action - Online Conversions" as your goal. You can also add VACs to your existing plans and create new ones for a full-funnel YouTube strategy, and organize your campaigns across the funnel to get the most out of your advertisements.
It's a major win for advertisers as a Nielsen meta-analysis reported that customers that used a full-funnel YouTube approach generated a 10% greater ROI than those who used awareness advertising solely. Skip the many phases of actual A/B testing, and use smarter ways such as forecasting to see which works best for your business!