"Selling a lot but earning little. The overseas 'Double Eleven' is almost driven crazy by Chinese sellers."

Author | Ye Danxuan

Editor | Yuan Silai

On December 2, as Monday in the US came to an end, the "Double Eleven" promotion season for overseas retail came to a close.

Every year, the fourth Friday of November and the first Monday after it are known as "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" (hereinafter referred to as "BF" and "CM"), which are the most important shopping festivals overseas.

According to Amazon's disclosure, this year's "BF" and "CM" promotional activities have set new historical records for sales volume and the number of goods sold. During the 2024 "BF" and "CM" events, more than 60% of Amazon's sales came from third-party sellers.

Meanwhile, TikTok stated that in 2024, the shopping sales in the US on Black Friday alone increased by twice, exceeding $100 million. The number of shoppers on the TikTok Shop platform during the "BF" and "CM" period increased by 1.65 times year-on-year.

The latest research data disclosed by Adobe Analytics shows that on Cyber Monday this year, the online spending of US consumers reached $13.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.3%.

During the period from November 1 to December 2, the total online spending of US consumers was $131.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9%. It is expected that the sales scale of the entire year-end peak season (from November 1 to December 31, 2024) will reach $240.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 8.4%.

However, the joy of the macro data has not been transmitted to the sellers. Many sellers told Yingke that the situation of the "weakest peak season" in 2023 is still continuing, and the consumption-boosting effect of overseas shopping festivals has significantly weakened. "The most intense Black Friday" has become an industry consensus.

From platforms such as Amazon, Temu, TikTok Shop to sellers, from discounts to products, the internal competition is burning in every area of cross-border e-commerce without any dead ends.

01 Hellish Black Friday, Chinese Sellers No Longer "Easily Profitable"

Compared with the hot performance of the platforms, there is a significant temperature difference in the cross-border seller groups.

After communicating with several cross-border sellers, Yingke found that except for emerging categories such as gardening, the sales volume and sales amount of most categories have not achieved the expected growth.

A wig category seller disclosed to Yingke that during the promotion period, both the sales volume and sales amount decreased by nearly 15% year-on-year. Another seller mainly selling new energy accessories said that the sales amount decreased by 10% year-on-year.

In addition to the cold reception in sales volume and sales amount, the rising costs are also frequently mentioned in the discussions of sellers.

The soaring advertising costs and the declining delivery efficiency have been the major problems for cross-border sellers in recent years. A home furnishing category seller told Yingke that around 2019, the average ROI of advertising on platforms such as Google could reach 8 - 9, but this year's advertising ROI has dropped to 4. That is to say, spending 1 dollar on advertising can only bring 4 dollars in sales, and the proportion of advertising costs in the total revenue has reached as high as 25%, and the ROI decline is more than 50%.

Pacvue data shows that the cost-per-click (CPC) of Amazon's advertising increased by 9.9% compared to Black Friday 2023, reaching $1.89. In order to maintain visibility during the promotion, sellers have to increase their investment in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising just to maintain the same level of exposure as the previous year.

Sellers are in a dilemma in the platforms with rising prices. The above-mentioned seller said, "We have been reducing advertising investment usually, and the performance has indeed been affected, but at such a critical node as Black Friday, we really dare not bet and can only continue to invest."

"The overall situation this year is that the sales volume of many categories is increasing, but the overall profit margin is actually decreasing." Rocky, a senior cross-border e-commerce operator, told Yingke that selling more but earning less is the consensus this year. In this year's Black Friday promotion, the situation of zero profit or even losing money to attract customers is not uncommon.

According to the latest public information from the Ministry of Commerce, in the first three quarters of 2024, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 1.88 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.5%. As of the first quarter of this year, it is preliminarily estimated that there are more than 120,000 cross-border e-commerce entities nationwide, and more than 1,000 cross-border e-commerce industrial parks.

When a large number of people and money pour into the cross-border e-commerce track, the easy and profitable situation of "opening for one month and having enough food for a whole year" in the past Black Fridays no longer exists.

02 Sellers Struggle, Platforms Compete Intensely

"Black Friday" is replicating China's "Double Eleven".

As early as 2020, the period of the "Double Eleven" shopping festival has been as long as 22 days. And in 2024, the period of the Double Eleven of major e-commerce platforms has been close to thirty days. Among them, Douyin's promotional activities seamlessly connect with the National Day Golden Week, lasting for 35 days. At the same time, shopping festivals are also becoming more and more frequent, with shopping festivals of different sizes appearing every 1 - 1.5 months on average.

This year, Amazon started the Black Friday promotion on November 21, with a total period of 12 days, which is the longest Black Friday period in the platform's history. And the cross-border e-commerce platforms with domestic genes have also inherited the extended promotion period of the domestic shopping festivals. Temu's promotion started on October 20, with a total duration of up to 47 days. AliExpress's Black Friday period is one month, and TikTok Shop's period is 20 days.

The intense competition among platforms not only prolongs the period of shopping festivals but also blurs the geographical boundaries of Black Friday promotions. This year, Amazon announced that the Black Friday Global Shopping Season of its overseas shopping site was launched on JD.com. AliExpress, backed by Alibaba, also launched a 10-billion subsidy campaign overseas.

Before this year's Black Friday, Amazon launched its low-price store section Haul, where the selling price of all goods is under $20, and most goods are in the price range of around $10. Temu's low-price model not only educates overseas consumers but also educates competing platforms.

According to incomplete statistics by Yingke, during this Black Friday, various e-commerce platforms have come up with various tricks in terms of discount intensity. Temu said that the maximum discount for some goods reaches 90%, and at the same time, consumers can enjoy a 25% limited-time consumption cashback. Amazon announced that the overall discount ranges from 10% to 70%, and at the same time, the low-price store section Haul enjoys a 50% discount for the entire venue. While launching the 10-billion subsidy, AliExpress announced that the maximum discount is as high as 90%. TikTok Shop has played a combination of exclusive product discounts, limited-time cashback for new users, GMV target achievement incentives, and simultaneous exposure inside and outside the station.

The shopping festivals in China and overseas are gradually sharing a set of discourse and methods in terms of period, mechanism, and discount.

"Not only sellers, but platforms have also entered a 'plateau period' (a fitness term originally meaning a fat loss stagnation period, here referring to the platform's development bottleneck)." The strategic account manager of a leading overseas e-commerce platform summarized to Yingke, "Before a new ecosystem emerges, there is really not much new to expect. Now both domestic and foreign (platforms) are in a state of white-hot close combat."

The white-hot competition among platforms has trapped sellers in the bidding system.

Operator Rocky told Yingke that in order to enhance competitiveness, some platforms will have a built-in price monitoring plugin to show buyers the price increase trend of merchants. "In the past, we might have seen a price increase before the Black Friday period, but now this kind of small trick is becoming more and more difficult to work."

"There is no imagination space for low prices up to today. The platform's bottomless low-price strategy will instead force sellers to give up competing on prices." Many industry insiders have expressed similar views to Yingke. The industry is expecting sellers to unite and exert efforts in upgrading product power to launch a "counterattack" against the platform's low-price strategy.