This week on the U.S. marketplace, in one seller’s words, “there’s a new mess every day.”

On Monday, sellers found that orders in Amazon Seller Central stopped updating; on Tuesday, many sellers noticed abnormal fluctuations in advertising data: budgets could not be spent, impressions dropped sharply, and order volume fell accordingly.

For a time, speculation and discussion bubbled up across forums.

Can’t even spend ad budgets anymore?

“Sales are similar to yesterday—both bad. Ads are abnormal today; there are no clicks and the money won’t spend.”

“Budget spent is only one-third of normal, but order volume is okay.”

“Same here, my ad spend today is half of normal, and sales are similar to yesterday.”

Another seller said on the 15th: “Even with extremely restrained ad adjustments, ads spent $200 yesterday, but as of this writing today they have spent less than $50. They simply won’t spend.” Another seller said: “Today my ad impressions were nearly cut in half, so spend naturally fell. Something is off—no matter how low traffic gets, I’ve never seen impressions halved.”

Similar reports are common in communities and forums. Some sellers even found a $100 gap between actual spend and total budget.

Soon sellers were heatedly discussing the advertising anomalies. Some believe traffic has declined and competitor adjustments in the category drove up bids; others lean toward delayed or incomplete platform data updates. One seller reasoned: “Today ad spend is much lower, orders are normal, and ad metrics look unusually good. I suspect ad spend data is delayed—yesterday it was order data that was delayed. Yesterday afternoon order data returned to normal, so I guess later today the ad spend figures will also display normally.”

Before the cause is clear, sellers do not need to rush into major strategy changes. They can first observe subsequent backend data updates before making judgments.

However, some sellers found that even after ruling out system data delays, traffic has indeed declined. A seller of four-season parts did the math: last month daily ad sales were $3,172 with $703 spend, and this month it dropped to $2,269 with $560 spend. “Right now ads won’t spend, conversion is poor, and there’s simply no traffic.”

We are currently in the period after Labor Day and around the Jewish New Year, when seasonal factors naturally bring traffic fluctuations. Some sellers mapped out the timeline: Labor Day on September 7, the September 11 commemoration, the Jewish New Year from September 11 to 13, and an Amazon server outage on September 13, joking that “the reasons for this week’s decline report are ready.”

Jokes aside, whether and how much these events affected traffic still needs to be judged with concrete data.

Setting aside platform technical issues, sellers still need to review their own listings, bids, and budget settings, optimize appropriately, and better capture peak-season traffic in the second half of the year.

Customs seizes goods: compliant operations are a bottom line that cannot be crossed

While sellers were troubled by ads and orders, another piece of news deserves attention.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized two shipments from China in Norfolk, Virginia: one contained 1,043 automotive radiators with a declared value of $5,775, bound for Cheyenne, Wyoming; the other contained 420 70-pint high-capacity dehumidifiers with a declared value of $10,080, bound for Artesia, California.

But CBP trade specialists valued them at as much as $110,176 and $181,847 respectively, a total of nearly $300,000.

The two shipments were detained because of discrepancies between import documents and identity documents. CBP then contacted the two listed importers, both of whom said they had not ordered the goods and were not engaged in importing. After investigation, both were identified as victims of identity theft. In other words, someone used stolen U.S. citizen identities to declare the goods for import into the United States.

CBP Area Port Director Kerry Brady stated clearly: “Legitimate businesses do not use stolen U.S. citizen identities to import commercial goods.” The investigation is ongoing.

Sellers must not make the same mistakes. Underreporting cargo value, using others’ identities, and making false declarations—once caught, not only will goods be detained, but sellers may also face legal liability and credit damage.

As Chinese sellers’ presence in the U.S. market continues to grow, customs scrutiny of commercial goods from China will only become more detailed, not looser.

For the vast majority of sellers who operate properly, stricter enforcement is not necessarily bad. The fewer people who lower costs by underreporting cargo value and identity fraud, the cleaner the competitive environment for sellers who declare and pay taxes normally.