The sharp decline of Amazon's platform is a big trend that will lead to job cuts in cross-border e-commerce starting in 2027, and "one job, multiple jobs" will become the norm in the industry.

By Alan Lee (马沙老师）

This year, in my interactions with people in the cross-border industry, I 

can mostly feel the chill: on Douyin and Red Note communities, and in 

WeChat Moments, I often hear about layoffs in the Amazon industry, 

unsold goods, and tight cash flow for stores.

The worsening of global politics and wars, social unrest in Europe and 

rising inflation have caused people in the consumer countries to have the 

lowest consumption appetite in history. Under these factors, Amazon's 

top sellers will also begin to shrink and adjust their staffing structure, and 

small and medium-sized sellers and small companies will struggle more, 

and the industry average salary will be drastically reduced, which is 

already an option for all cross-border businesses to bypass for years to 

come.

The joke circulating lately reflects the reality for many companies: first lay 

off graphic designers, then hand over main images, product detail pages, 

and promotional posters to operations teams, who barely get by using AI-

generated visuals. Customer service has been scaled back or outsourced, 

and pre-sales consultation, after-sales disputes, and bad reviews are all 

handled by operations. Later, even product development was cut down, 

and selection, testing, landing, and changing links fell to operations.

On-the-job operational pressures have increased, and the base assistant 

position has been seriously undermined. The minimum salary was 

around 4,000 yuan, and the sender squeezed his head. Having two days 

off, not being forced to work overtime, and paying social security on time 

are already a rare good job.

The market has come to this point for a realistic reason: platform traffic 

is becoming more and more expensive, logistics, warehousing, 

Compliance costs have been rising year after year, and when combined 

with currency exchange fluctuations and new overseas tax regulations, 

these layered cost pressures are squeezing sellers' profits. According to 

this year's industry statistics and survey data, among Amazon sellers 

based in China, 80% of companies are operating at a loss or barely 

breaking even, while only 20% remain profitable.

Now, small and medium-sized bosses have unstable orders and thin 

profits, and cannot afford to support a complete team, so they must 

reduce their staff, consolidate positions, and live first before talking about 

making money. Head sellers have plenty of leverage and support, reliably 

reduce prices and stabilize volume, and have obvious supply chain and 

financial advantages. The total demand in the cross-border e-commerce 

market is limited, and Amazon's policies prioritize traffic to the top sellers, 

and many small and medium-sized sellers gradually lose their share.

Small and medium-sized sellers cannot cope with capital, supply, and 

traffic, and their living space continues to shrink, so they cannot survive 

and can only walk away. This is the reality of cross-border e-commerce 

today.