Recently, the two core platforms in the cross-border e-commerce industry have successively issued rule adjustment announcements, directly changing the annual operating logic. Relevant sellers need to familiarize themselves with the new regulatory requirements as soon as possible, optimize operating strategies, and reduce unnecessary losses.
1. Compulsory reform of product titles on Amazon’s entire platform, officially effective on July 27
In June, Amazon’s global seller backend pushed a unified announcement. Except for books and audio-visual media products, all category title rules on the entire site were completely restructured. The long title stacking method that has been used for many years is completely invalid. This is the rule adjustment that has the greatest impact on the weight of Listing this year.
This new regulation sets two hard red lines, with no room for buffering: First, the main title is strictly limited to 75 characters (including spaces and punctuation marks). Links that exceed the standard will be automatically deleted and rewritten by the platform AI after July 27, and sellers cannot intervene. Long-tail precise stems are easily lost during the rewriting process, which directly leads to a sharp drop in search exposure; second, the platform has added an independent searchable module “Item”
“Highlights Product Highlights”, an additional 125 characters are allocated for display space. Materials, sizes, applicable scenarios, differentiated selling points and other contents are all transferred here to fill in. This field shares the search index weight with the main title. It is displayed simultaneously under the title of the front-end search results page and the details page. Buyers can see the product advantages at a glance.
The core root cause of this adjustment is that global mobile shopping accounted for more than 78%. Ultra-long titles will be largely truncated on mobile phones, buyers cannot see complete product information, and click-through rates continue to decline.
At the same time, it is equipped with Rufus AI search and Alexa voice retrieval mechanism, short title + standardized selling point module, and is more suitable for AI crawling and conversational search traffic. Long-term compliance links will receive natural traffic weighting.
Judging from the current seller test data, sellers who have made early adjustments have already achieved positive benefits: a seller of home boutiques adjusted 32 popular links in the store in early June. The main title only retains the brand + core products + basic specifications. All selling points such as materials and adapted models are moved to the product highlights field, and all search roots are completely retained. After the adjustment, the click-through rate on the mobile terminal increased by 21% in two weeks, and there was no loss of long-tail word traffic.
Sellers who have not yet adjusted their products have experienced traffic losses. A 3C accessories seller still maintains a 180-character stacked title. During the system test rewrite, the core long-tail keyword “adapted to 2026 new tablets” was deleted. The search ranking fell directly out of the top 50 pages, and the peak season advertising budget was wasted more than 20,000 yuan.
In response to this adjustment, the official has provided a standardized filling template, which sellers can apply directly: the 75-character fixed structure of the compliance main title is brand + core category + basic specifications/adapted models, such as “Kitchen Silicone Air Fryer Liners, 100 Pack 8 Inch”; the supporting product highlights of 125 characters can be filled with the core attributes of the product, such as “Food Grade Silicone, Heat Resistant 230℃, Non-Stick, Reusable, Fit Most
5-9QT Air Fryers”.
Sellers need to avoid four major illegal minefields when making rectifications: it is prohibited to pile up marketing words such as Best and Hot Sale, do not add special symbols or emoji to attract clicks, abide by the capitalization regulations, and do not stuff all long-tail modifiers into the main title.
Sellers can implement it in stages: test and adjust 2-3 popular links from now until early July to confirm that there is no traffic fluctuation, and then modify the entire store in batches; complete the rectification of the entire store’s links before July 20 to avoid batch rewrites of the system disrupting the traffic pool; after the rectification is completed, check the search term report every week to check whether the original high-converting long-tail words are included normally, and if there is any loss, add them to the highlight module in a timely manner.
2. AliExpress Australia launches the “Business-to-Business” model, reshaping the industry landscape
On June 15, AliExpress officially announced that the channel for local merchants in Australia is fully open, which is what the industry calls the “Business-to-Business” model.
“The model is different from the traditional cross-border direct shipping and overseas custody model of Chinese sellers. Local enterprises open stores independently, all goods are stored in local warehouses in Australia, local delivery is fulfilled, intra-city delivery takes 1 day, cross-city delivery takes 3-7 days, and the entire return and exchange process is handled locally in Australia.
At present, this model has been implemented in Europe, Brazil, and South Korea, and the conversion rate of local stores is more than 35% higher than that of cross-border direct stores.
This policy has had a triple direct impact on Chinese cross-border sellers: First, local store traffic is naturally weighted, and the exposure of direct-shipped small packages is squeezed. Australian consumers give priority to products shipped from local warehouses. Platform search rankings and event registration resources are fully tilted towards local merchants. The traditional low-priced 9.9 Australian dollars of direct-shipment jewelry and small household items, home page exposure continues to shrink, and natural traffic drops sharply. Secondly, the EU’s new small package tariff policy in July was transmitted to Australia, and direct shipping costs doubled, and cross-border parcel customs clearance inspections were required.
Frequency increases, fuel surcharges continue to rise, and there are no cross-border freight and customs clearance losses for local stores to perform local contracts. Local merchants have greater pricing space for the same product, and China’s low-priced white-label products completely lose their price advantage; thirdly, the after-sales gap widens, and the return losses of direct-shipment stores double. Returns and exchanges of local products are completed locally, and buyers have zero worries. China’s direct-shipment package returns require international round-trip logistics, which incurs freight and customs clearance costs. Every 5% increase in the return rate results in a direct loss for a single product, and the repurchase rate is much lower than that of local warehouse goods.
In view of this adjustment, Chinese sellers can choose two adaptive breakout routes to avoid involution losses: First, lay out Australian overseas custody warehouses, benchmark local store performance timeliness, and store batches of goods by sea in AliExpress Australia’s official custody warehouse. The platform is responsible for local distribution and after-sales, and the products are marked with the local express logo to obtain equal traffic weighting. The whole container customs declaration shares logistics and tax costs, and hedging costs
The price advantage of local merchants is suitable for sellers of small items needed for home furnishings, pets, and storage. Secondly, they should dig deep into differentiated niche markets to avoid the involution of local currency. Australian local merchants focus on affordable daily currency, and there is a huge gap in subdividing functional improved models, niche outdoor, and Chinese-style home furnishings. Deeply cultivate differentiated products, rely on exclusive functions and materials to create premiums, and do not need to fall into low-price price wars. The comprehensive gross profit of a single piece can be maintained at more than 40%.
It should be noted that three types of sellers are not suitable to continue to stick to the pure small package direct shipping track: sellers who only sell products at a low price of 9.9 Australian dollars, with no differentiated improvements, and no overseas warehouse reserve funds; sellers who specialize in high return rate categories such as clothing and beauty products, and cannot afford cross-border return and exchange losses; sellers who do not have a stable supply chain, can only ship goods on behalf of one piece, and cannot prepare batches of goods in overseas managed warehouses.
Overall, the two new regulations point to a unified development trend in the cross-border industry: platforms are moving towards localization and refined operations.
On the one hand, Listing has shifted from keyword stacking to adapting to AI and lightweight display on mobile terminals. The era of extensive operation of “stacking words to rush rankings” is completely over. The core of future traffic depends on information clarity and buyer reading experience. Only standardized and hierarchical product information will continue to receive free traffic. On the other hand, all sites around the world have fully liberalized the entry of local merchants, and the cross-border direct shipping track has continued
As the market continues to shrink, the dividends of the pure domestic direct shipping small package model gradually disappear, overseas warehouses, local fulfillment, and localized product improvements have become standard features, and the living space of merchants who only do one-piece dropshipping and mass distribution continues to shrink; in addition, compliance and lightweight have become the unified assessment standards of the platform, and the risk control and compliance thresholds of all platforms have been raised simultaneously. Extensive trial and error, and side-stepping operations can easily cause link flow restrictions and fund freezes.
Relevant sellers can promptly adjust their operating strategies according to their own tracks and reduce operating risks.
