Although many cross-border companies have been on vacation, the seller's operation has definitely not stopped.
Recently, the biggest headache for sellers on the European station is the incident of the European local account being seized by Amazon because of the payment of back taxes!
The sellers are as anxious as ants on a hot pot, and in the face of sky-high taxes, the sellers can neither make up for it, but also don't want to lose their accounts, which is really helpless!
And on February 3rd, Amazon also officially responded!
Amazon officially responded to the "tax audit" incident
According to an announcement issued by Amazon, sellers have recently received a request from Amazon to verify information to reconfirm the company's registered address. Amazon explained thisThis move is an implementation of the UK's new VAT (Value Added Tax) policy.
In addition, the announcement shows that Amazon collects and remits VAT to businesses established outside the UK in accordance with the requirements of the UK tax authorities, in addition to the previously uploaded information, as part of the investigation, Amazon may require sellers to provide more information, and in the process, the funds in the seller's account may be temporarily frozen.
Source: Amazon announcement.
In other words, this tax audit must be irreversible! But Amazon's move still caused dissatisfaction among many sellers!
In the comment area of the announcement, many sellers are complaining:
This series of changes has made matters worse for me. ”
UK legislation also stipulates that various companies, including Amazon, must store and process user data securely, and sending information via mail is not secure. ”
Will there be good news tomorrow? I feel like I need to contact the Amazon team again as they may ask me for additional information. I'm just tired of waiting. I check my email almost 1 billion times a day! ”
It is undeniable that this time it did bring a lot of blows to sellers. But at the end of the day, the root cause is that the seller himself is not compliant with the tax returns.
At this stage, Amazon's compliance operation management is becoming more and more strict, and sellers should not report that they have a fluke mentality, and will only continue to tighten in the future, compliance is king!
With the gradual tightening of Amazon's policies, Amazon's competition is becoming more and more fierce, and many sellers are also planning to "escape from Amazon" in 2024.
Should we continue to hold on in 2024?
Although the store was blocked due to some non-compliant behaviors, it was also the seller's own evil consequences, but some accounts were blocked and the seller was very speechless!
It is reported that a seller recently broke the news that a technology company in Shenzhen announced a store closure notice on January 31:Since September 2023, due to the continuous closure of the company's Amazon stores, the company's capital chain has been broken, and the operation is difficult and unsustainable, so after careful consideration, the company has decided to officially suspend work and business on January 31, 2024.
Source: Weibo seller broke the news.
As soon as this news broke, some sellers began to complain: Now that it is operating normally, the store will also be closed!
Our company was also at the end of September last year, the company took the brand route, honestly abided by the rules, and was still blocked".
If you scan the number randomly, it may just be because you changed the payment once, or added a credit card, or for unknown reasons, it swept you."
Based on the feedback from these sellers,On the one hand, most sellers are affected by logistics, business, inflation and other aspects because of various restrictions on the one hand, although there are no violations, but it leads to the rise of the company's operating costs, the cash flow of the store is broken, and finally the store must not be closed.
However, according to Amazon's 2023 financial report, the current market is tending to ease, and the development in 2024 is still optimistic.
And the data also shows that the number of new sellers on Amazon is still increasing every year.
However, it is worth noting that the competition in Amazon is already very fierce, which is an indisputable fact, as is the tightening of platform policies and the increase in operating costs; And this kind of phenomenon will only become more and more serious in the future, which is a greater test for the seller's first-chain ability.
In the new year, whether the old seller sticks to the battlefield or the new seller enters the game, only under the premise of compliance operation, continue to increase the competitiveness of their products, in order not to be abandoned by the torrent of the times!