Why do cross-border e-commerce merchants need to be independent?

In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet trade industry, cross-border e-commerce has become a " new engine " to promote economic development . Relying on the vast global e-commerce platform , more Chinese brands have shined on the world stage through cross-border e-commerce. At the same time , the booming Chinese cross-border e-commerce economy has also attracted the attention of foreign cross-border e-commerce companies.

So what is the difference between an independent website and a cross-border e-commerce platform? The following will analyze the independent website and platform website, website building platform and system analysis.

1. What is a cross-border e-commerce independent website?

In short, a cross-border e-commerce independent website is an official website with sales functions built by foreign trade enterprises. Cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay are equivalent to domestic e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com.

As competition among cross-border e-commerce platforms intensifies, the early dividends are gradually disappearing. Even e-commerce platforms with strong traffic appeal, such as Amazon, eBay, and Wish, only occupy 40% to 50% of the overseas e-commerce market. More and more cross-border e-commerce sellers are beginning to enter the independent station trend, and the brand development potential is huge.

Nowadays, with the rise of the DTC model of cross-border e-commerce independent stations, we are increasingly aware of the importance of building brand independent stations. However, before blindly building an independent station, we must first figure out why we want to build an independent station. Next, we will focus on how cross-border e-commerce sellers should choose independent stations and platform models, and what basic operational thinking they should have if they want to transform into an independent station.

1. Analysis of independent station model

In terms of positioning differences, the purpose of independent site sellers is more focused on building brands, while platform sellers are more focused on "selling goods".

Let me give you a simple example: If I want to buy a pair of pants, I can open Taobao → search for pants → search for pants → click to buy, but if the pants I often buy are brand XX, or if I hear recommendations from others and want to buy brand XX pants, I will directly search for the brand's independent mall.

In other words, for consumers, going to an e-commerce platform is to buy a category of goods, and they are more sensitive to price and shipping costs; but entering a brand's independent website is to be attracted by the brand. Compared with platforms, independent websites are more suitable for building brands and strengthening brand stickiness with consumers.

In terms of cost differences, the cost of entering the platform will become higher and higher, while the opposite is true for independent sites. As the independent site is used for a longer time, the cost will be evenly distributed and the price will be cheaper.

In terms of operational differences, the operation of the platform is based on the supervision of the platform and the attributes of the platform users. It is a commodity operation under the platform rules. And the marketing methods are also more specific. They can only place advertisements on the site and rank on the site. Of course, the growth effect is not obvious. The independent site starts from scratch. It has to face the consumer group, platform attributes and user shopping experience. They are all designed by the enterprise itself. The enterprise not only has to operate the platform, but also the goods, which puts very high demands on the operation of the enterprise. At the same time, the benefits are also great. All users who purchase on the independent site will leave data. These data can help brands to remarket to similar audiences and old customers, thereby forming purchase stickiness, which is extremely beneficial to brand building.

Note: After the operation matures, some platform sellers will want to attract traffic from outside the platform, but it is not recommended for platform sellers to directly attract traffic to the store: First, advertisements (such as Facebook ads) will bring you a lot of traffic, but you cannot track what behavior these traffic will eventually generate in the store, and whether they place orders; second, off-site advertisements will bring you a lot of traffic, but if a large amount of traffic goes directly to the store without being screened, it will be difficult to generate conversions, thereby reducing the store's weight and affecting the store's ranking on the platform; third, many platform sellers will post links on the Facebook platform to attract stores, but this will bring little traffic and is easy to be reported. In serious cases, the FB account will be closed.

2. Independent website building platform and system analysis

At present, independent website building systems are divided into two types: open source website building systems and SaaS website building systems:

Open source website building systems: Magento, Opencart, WordPress, Drupal Commerce

SaaS website building system: giimall, Shopify, bigcommerce, volution, squarespace, 3dcart, big cartel... Take giimall and Magento as examples: they are shopping cart systems in the SaaS field, suitable for cross-border e-commerce platform sellers to quickly build independent sites in the early stage of transformation. Since users pay a certain amount of rent and commission sharing every month, they can use various themes/templates to build their own online stores. Yiyingbao provides a long-term free trial function. Interested cross-border e-commerce sellers can experience it first and feel the convenience of opening a cross-border store.

Professional open source e-commerce system. The design is very flexible, with modular architecture and rich functions. It is easy to integrate seamlessly with third-party application systems. It is oriented to enterprise applications and can meet various needs to build multi-purpose and multi-application e-commerce websites. Including shopping, shipping, product reviews, etc., it makes full use of the characteristics of open source and provides code base development. It is a very standardized standard. However, the development threshold will be slightly higher, and it requires specialized programmers to develop.

In short, SaaS website building systems are relatively simple and suitable for platform sellers to transform into independent sites and traditional manufacturing companies. Although open source website building systems are complex, they are very flexible. They can be customized. They are suitable for sellers who already have a certain foundation or make customized products.

3. Basic operation ideas and processes of independent stations

It should be noted here that unlike the traffic brought by the platform itself, there is no traffic in the independent station. Opening a store on a cross-border e-commerce platform is like opening a store in a shopping mall. There is a natural flow to the shopping mall. As long as your store is easy to find, beautifully decorated, and cheap, customers will gradually come to the store to buy. But the independent station is like you opening a brand image store on the street. You need to promote and tell the seller the store address before customers gradually come to the store to buy.

Therefore, in the early stage of the independent station, it is necessary to obtain the first wave of traffic through channels such as SEO, SEM, EDM, Facebook, Google, and ins. It is recommended that platform sellers or foreign trade companies start the layout of off-site traffic channels as soon as possible. Regardless of whether there is advertising or not, at least establish a brand facade on the Facebook homepage and learn to attract traffic from social media channels. When the independent station is established and has traffic, we will get user behavior data, which is data that we cannot get on the platform. With this data, we can carry out customized remarketing.

The platform can only use new visitors, cannot accumulate traffic, and has a single remarketing model. Independent sites can achieve visitor remarketing. When new visitors enter the website to buy, the website can retain the data of these purchasing users and use these user data for similar audiences and remarketing, thus forming a cycle and becoming loyal customers of your website. When there are more loyal customers, the brand will naturally become.

In a word, why do you want to build an independent website? What are the benefits of an independent website? In fact, there are three reasons: building a corporate brand, breaking away from policy constraints, and achieving data autonomy. Brands going global is the future development trend of cross-border e-commerce. Independent websites are the only way for brands to go global. And regardless of the rules and constraints of the platform, you can build your own independent website brand mall. Achieving data freedom will make better preparations for the next step of remarketing.

Yiyingbao cross-border e-commerce SaaS platform focuses on Chinese companies going overseas and is committed to building world brands. With 18 years of experience in building independent foreign trade stations and providing services, we look forward to your joining us! Welcome to contact us at 4006552477