Guide to Core Bottlenecks and Solutions for E-Commerce Merchants' Operations

Welcome to the merchant operation help center guide of this platform. As the e-commerce industry has fully transitioned from the traffic dividend era to the stock in-depth operation stage, many merchants will encounter common problems such as stagnant growth, high costs, and declining conversion rates in daily operations. Combined with the latest industry operation data in October 2026 and the platform's operation rules, this article sorts out the core bottlenecks in the current e-commerce market, and provides corresponding solutions that can be directly implemented, helping merchants break through growth obstacles and achieve long-term and stable operations.

1. The traffic dividend fades, and it is increasingly difficult to obtain free organic traffic

This is the primary shallow pain point encountered by most merchants at present. The model of quickly opening a store in the past, which relied on the platform's organic traffic to stock goods and sell in large volumes, has completely failed. The global traffic is gradually saturated, and the cold start cycle for new merchants has been extended from 7-15 days in the past to more than 30 days. A large number of homogeneous products are supplied in a concentrated manner, and the density of merchants in similar tracks continues to rise. Many merchants can only seize exposure through bidding, and eventually fall into a vicious cycle of "no orders without traffic investment, and capital losses with traffic investment".

Platform Support Solutions

1. Exclusive cold start traffic package for new merchants: New merchants who settle in within the first 30 days, after completing basic product listing and store qualification improvement, can claim up to 1500 free exposure traffic coupons in the "Growth Center" of the merchant background, covering the two core traffic scenarios of home page recommendation and search result page.
2. Free organic traffic diagnosis tool: In the "Operation Assistant" section of the merchant background, you can generate a store organic traffic analysis report with one click, accurately locate the shortcomings of search ranking, label matching deviation and other problems, and the platform will automatically give specific suggestions for keyword optimization and product title adjustment.
3. Exclusive traffic pool for small and medium-sized merchants: The platform opens an exclusive exposure pool for small and medium-sized merchants with monthly GMV below 100,000 yuan, avoiding the bidding competition of head merchants, and giving priority to supporting cost-effective characteristic white-label products to obtain precise user exposure.

2. Low-price involution intensifies, and profit margins continue to be compressed

Many merchants have fallen into the misunderstanding of "exchanging sales with low prices", taking low prices as the only competition criterion, failing to widen the gap through quality and services, and simply relying on continuously suppressing the upstream supply price and short-term loss subsidies to seize the market. This model can bring orders in the short term, but in the long run, it will compress the profit space of the entire industrial chain, and eventually lead to merchants having no extra funds to invest in product upgrading and service optimization, falling into a vicious circle of losing money the more they sell.

Platform Support Solutions

1. Special training on non-price competitiveness: The platform offers free live online courses every week, teaching merchants to build differentiated advantages through scenario-based detail pages, exclusive customized services, and member rights systems, so as to get rid of the pure price war competition.
2. High-premium product support plan: Products that meet quality standards, have independent design or brand qualifications, can apply for the "Quality Preferred" label to obtain exclusive traffic tilt. The platform will not include such products in the low-price sorting pool, supporting merchants to set reasonable prices to obtain profits.
3. Cost transparency tool: A profit accounting plug-in is added to the merchant background, which automatically counts the full-link costs of products including supply, logistics and traffic investment, and gives real-time early warning of products with loss-making pricing, preventing merchants from unconsciously falling into low-price involution.

3. Weak supply chain fulfillment capability, prominent shortcomings in user experience

Many small and medium-sized merchants have scattered supply chain layouts, failing to form a stable integrated supply system, and often encounter problems such as supply outages and uneven quality. At the same time, the fulfillment shortcomings of cross-border and long-distance distribution are particularly prominent: unstable distribution timeliness, cumbersome return and exchange processes, unclear division of responsibilities for damaged and lost items. A large number of merchants receive bad reviews due to fulfillment problems, and their store weights continue to decline.

Platform Support Solutions

1. Platform centralized supply chain docking channel: Merchants can dock with the industry belt factories officially cooperated by the platform in the "Supply Chain Service" section of the background, get stable source supply prices, and support small-batch flexible customization to reduce the risk of overstocking.
2. Official cloud warehouse fulfillment service: Merchants can choose to store their products in the platform's official cloud warehouse. The platform provides integrated services of unified warehousing, packaging and distribution, covering more than 98% of the districts and counties in China. Most areas can achieve delivery within 48 hours, and the platform bears the compensation responsibility for damaged and lost items in the distribution link.
3. After-sales fulfillment guarantee mechanism: For merchants who join the platform's "Worry-free Purchase" service, the return and exchange process is assisted and connected by the platform customer service. The platform can pay users in advance for after-sales applications that meet the rules, reducing the after-sales communication cost and dispute rate of merchants.

4. Insufficient awareness of compliant operation, prominent hidden risks of stores

Cross-border regulatory rules in various regions around the world and domestic platform operation specifications continue to be updated. Many merchants have weak awareness of compliance and have not established a normalized compliance control mechanism. In daily operations, they are prone to trigger violations: such as illegal product promotion, non-compliance of financial declaration, and non-standard user data management, which eventually lead to store traffic restriction, product removal or even account closure, and the operation stability cannot be guaranteed at all.

Platform Support Solutions

1. Free compliance physical examination service: Merchants can apply for a full-store compliance physical examination once a month in the background. The system automatically investigates potential violation risks in product promotion, qualification upload, data management and other links, and gives rectification prompts in advance to avoid triggering official penalties.
2. Real-time update of compliance knowledge base: The help center zone synchronizes the latest platform operation rules, cross-border market access requirements, and financial declaration guidelines in real time, supporting short video interpretation tutorials, which merchants can refer to and learn at any time.
3. Exclusive compliance consultant docking: Merchants with monthly GMV exceeding 500,000 yuan can apply to connect with the platform's exclusive compliance consultant, one-on-one to solve complex compliance problems such as cross-border operations and brand qualifications, and avoid operational risks.

5. Lack of brand mind, low user repurchase and recognition

Many merchants have long followed the distribution and OEM route, only focusing on short-term sales, ignoring the construction of independent brands. The store has no clear user mind, and consumers can't remember the store name after placing an order. The repurchase rate is far below the industry average for a long time. They can only rely on low prices and traffic investment to attract new users, and cannot form stable private domain user assets.

Platform Support Solutions

1. New brand growth support plan: Merchants with newly registered independent brands can apply for settlement in the brand zone, obtain exclusive home page display positions for brands. The platform assists merchants in creating brand story content, quickly establishing brand awareness in the minds of users.
2. Free opening of private domain operation tools: All merchants can use private domain operation tools such as fan groups, member systems, and exclusive coupons for free. The platform provides a complete repurchase operation tutorial, helping merchants convert ordering users into long-term repurchasing fans, reducing the subsequent customer acquisition cost.
3. Brand case incubation support: Merchants with characteristic products and high-quality services can sign up to participate in the platform's "New Cutting-edge Brand" case incubation activity. The platform promotes merchants for free through official content channels, quickly improving the industry popularity of the store.

If you encounter personalized problems not covered above during the operation process, you can contact the platform online customer service at any time, or go to the corresponding section of the help center to check the detailed operation guidelines. The platform will continue to iterate operation tools and support policies, and work with all merchants to break through industry bottlenecks and achieve long-term, stable and high-quality operations.