What's your exit plan?
Just curious what everyone’s exit plan for Amazon is…
With the relentless policy changes now happening on an almost weekly basis, it’s inevitable that each new asinine policy will hit one group of small businesses or another. Now it looks like it’s my turn, but clearly I won’t be the only one.
They’re targetting low value international sellers with the new forced returnless refunds policy - which is my group. The new forced returnless refunds will make things nonviable as I’m already inundated with scammers. My demographic is teens and I ship untracked low value items to Europe. I already give out loads of refunds as it is, so once they start social-media-ing that my stuff is free on amazon, I’ll be toast.
So it’s time for my exit plan. The new policy starts October 5 and I suspect that by Christmas time my scam returnless refunds will exceed my profit, so I’m giving myself 3 months to sort out the transition.
I already do etsy, ebay, allegro, and a UK shopify store. Unfortunately Amazon EU is still 75% of my sales. I’m considering going back to Cdiscount and doing a shopify for .DE, .ES, AND .FR as well. Maybe even facebook shopping.
Anyone got any more ideas? It’s heartbreaking, but I can’t afford to VAT register in 3 countries just for the privilege of offering a local return address in them (this is considered ‘holding stock’ and therefore requires registration). I also can’t afford to give away more to scammers, as I’m already maxed out as it is. Sadly, this may be the end of amazon for me as I don’t see another way out.
0 replies
Seller_sFEUMUfeW5484
For the past 8 months or so I have been learning Bass guitar and the drums. I am also part way through an Open University Diploma of higher education in computing IT and Business. I am considering also learning a new language. Spreading the net a bit wider with regards to maybe returning to employment.
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
If sending to Europe is your main income why not look at arranging a return address in EU
Seller_xUKHc5xSYJmI4
They have all the data so they don’t need sellers on their platform.
Seller_qqCKaiyZvp4Rc
You could raise your prices to cover it? I’ve found that you can command higher prices on amazon lately and the customer will pay but luckily we have our own brand so we can do this
If you don’t have control over the listing then I can’t think of a way around it apart from maybe rejecting future orders from any buyer that has made a returnless refund
Seriously though I have no idea how newbies get into selling on Amazon these days it must be so difficult to jump through all the hoops and make a profit at the end of it, I’d hate to have to start all over in this day and age
Seller_1b97ok0eoUdhM
Just as info you do not need to register in 3 countries, open a subsidiary in Europe and register to the IOSS in any EU country, maybe you can use Estonia as everything is digital there.
With the IOSS you only need one VAT for all EU countries, maybe that can help.
Seller_8f1IPTDlAyi0l
I have been contracting for coming up to 5 years as a BA for a number of different clients and ploughing around 80% of that money into my inventory on amazon. It is now getting healthy and the items I sell gain value the longer I hold onto them but the past few months I have certainly considered not making any more purchases and selling what I have over the coming 3 years. I will then buy a few houses to rent and move onto something else. I was really contemplating moving to Prague to get some remote working gigs.
Amazon is to stressful and support from them is close to none existent or worse it adds to the stress.
Seller_2EG6N58tYDYmC
I’m seriosly thinking of finding a rich guy and get him to pay my bills!
Seller_vTCC47DVMGUB8
I don’t really have an exit plan and have no plan to not sell on Amazon. We do not sell to outside the UK and at the minute we can cope with all the hoop jumping.
Short term plan is to build sales on our own websites, which I am currently working on;
Google shopping: if you do nothing else people should do this, it is free to list products on and is doing very well for us. It takes no work once it has been set up properly, it is a direct feed from your website and will update when products are in stock or not. When you drop the price Google will notice and highlight that to potential customers.
You can also use the below platforms.
Facebook Page / Shop
Instagram
Twitter
I sold a busienss Twitter account that I had 25,000 active followers but takes time. The above are all free to use and many people already spend far to much time on them, so why not use them to promote your sales? I now employ somebody to run the above social accounts and they are doing ok, but could do more, the amount of time some people spend on these forums they could have a massive following on the above socials.
If you have a monthly budget you can blow, the following are higher risk
Google Ads
Facebook Ads
Instagram Ads
Like Amazon advertising there is no guarantee of any sales / return on your spend, but if you get it right you get customers to your own website and repeat business / sales. You can also get them to refer friends etc…
There are companies that will run campaigns for you, sometimes it is worth paying somebody that knows what they are doing rather than spending money and getting frustrated.
TikTok: No idea, will need to employ my 7yr old granddaughter to run that, she seems to know more about that than anybody else in the family. Cost will be a box of Harribo Cherries a week, she will probably sub the dance moves out to her 5yr old sister.
Long term plan is to move to Spain and enjoy life.
Seller_zwxMDwzqQmf61
what about moving to Northern Ireland? Brexit was cataclysmic and if nothing changes (why would it), I’ll rent a cottage near Belfast as they’re quite cheap and move my business there. i really, really do not want to do that, but there may be no other option.
in Ulster business is as pre-brexit usual as it’s in the single market plus delivery to the GB is frictionless.
Seller_DJwE1RXTpAHPh
the short and sweet answer to all your problems with Amazon is this:
if you are absorbing price increases and new costs then you are not doing it right.
you need to calculate, estimate or, at the very least, guess what new policies will cost you realistically, then apply them to your sales prices.
Amazon passes all costs on to us that they can. So we must do the same to Amazon’s customers. it’s just business. any business saying they don’t do this either is lying for PR purposes or they will soon go out of business.
also, you don’t need to register for VAT in EU countries so you can provide a local return address. You can use a package forwarding company to have returns received and sent back to you, or you can get a PO Box and do the same. It is not considered holding stock unless you sent it from outside that country to be held there. e.g. a German customer sending goods back to a German address operated by a German VAT-registered company does not obligate you to register for VAT in Germany
but are your annual sales to all EU countries combined more than 10k EUR? Or approx 8.5k GBP? Because if that’s true then you have to register for VAT anyway in one EU member state at least (and use the Non-Union One Stop Shop). If you are in Northern Ireland you can use your XI VAT number and use the Union One Stop Shop.
Anyway you say you already give out loads of refunds. Remember that human beings are more likely to imprint a negative experience in the brain’s memory (to build pattern recognition and protect us in the future). So it’s probably less than you think. Analyse your data and apply replacement surcharges to your offers. E.g. you refund 10% of Italian orders (quite possible) then find out what it costs you (not the sales price) (and remember the ~3% amazon refund admin fee) and apply to your costs before calculating your sale price.
It’s not just maths by the way. It’s risk management and it will remove the personal aspect from your decision making when executing refunds and returns.
