ByteDance launches another independent website for women's clothing!

Since the beginning of 2021, ByteDance has begun to experiment with cross-border e-commerce, successively launching TikTok Shop similar to Douyin Store, Fanno, an independent cross-border e-commerce platform, and Dmonstudio, a fast fashion women's clothing platform comparable to SHEIN.

Unfortunately, this series of attempts did not make much splash, but encountered multiple obstacles, but this did not stop ByteDance from moving forward. Recently, there was news in the industry that they began to incubate a fast fashion independent website called IfYooou.

IfYooou goes online, insiders ask: Can it survive successfully?

Recently, TikTok's parent company ByteDance launched a new fast fashion independent site IfYooou. Its main categories include dresses, swimsuits, tops, shirts and accessories . Currently, the independent site covers European countries including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Focusing on the three key factors of fast fashion, women's clothing and independent websites, IfYooou and Dmonstudio, which were launched earlier by ByteDance, are similar in design style and product categories.

But the difference is that IfYooou mainly covers European countries and has not touched the fiercely competitive American fast fashion market. In terms of product prices, IfYooou focuses on fast fashion, with relatively low product prices, mostly between US$10 and US$20, and large discounts.

According to the delivery information on the official website, orders on the website that do not exceed 29 pounds/euro currently need to pay 4.99 pounds/euro for shipping. And due to different markets, the time it takes to deliver the product varies, and it takes up to 15 days. If the seller needs to return or exchange the product, it must be within 30 days of delivery.

Judging from the registration time of the official YouTube account, it is March 16, 2022, which is close to the time when Dmonstudio was shut down, and the account currently does not have many fans.

According to Similarweb data, IfYooou's traffic in June was 351.7K, which increased to 436.7K in July, but in August, its website traffic fell back to 177.1K. Among them, the largest part of the traffic still mainly comes from China.

In addition, many foreign consumers are quite satisfied with IfYooou's products. On consumer review websites, dozens of consumer reviews are very high-quality, such as "the clothes are very comfortable, the size is just right, and the customer service is very friendly", "I have a great experience with this brand", "the product delivery is very fast", etc., and there is a reply from the official customer service of the platform under each review.

At the same time, the launch of IfYooou has also caused many people in the cross-border circle to speculate whether ByteDance's independent site can survive successfully?

Looking at ByteDance's layout in the field of cross-border e-commerce, we can see some clues.

Zhang Yiming regards cross-border e-commerce as an important new business direction. In addition to making a series of investments in this field, he has also launched TikTok Shopping, which is similar to Douyin Store, the independent platform Fanno, and the independent women's clothing site Dmonstudio. It can be said that he is making a strong bet on cross-border e-commerce by implementing a diversified strategy of advancing multiple lines in parallel.

Initially, based on the huge traffic of TikTok, ByteDance launched TikTok Shopping, which is similar to the domestic Douyin Mall. Merchants can add product links through short videos, share product links through live broadcasts, etc., in order to achieve the purpose of selling products.

In order to further expand the market, ByteDance launched Fanno. The platform has always been considered by industry insiders to be a counterpart to Pinduoduo because Fanno's strategies such as offering a £0.01 incentive for new users, discounts of up to 60%, and unconditional returns and exchanges within 14 days of receipt are very similar to Pinduoduo's approach.

The newly launched Fanno is in the limelight. Backed by ByteDance's huge traffic pool, it has a rich product line and low prices. In addition, cross-border sellers are optimistic about it. As everyone expected, Fanno has quickly occupied part of the European market.

After many setbacks, ByteDance is unwilling to give up cross-border e-commerce

But then it ran into big trouble. Multiple factors such as a serious decline in APP downloads and prominent platform negative reviews led to many sellers facing a serious decline in orders and profit margins. In May this year, an industry insider revealed that the Fanno project team had been disbanded in April and was about to be shut down because the monthly orders failed to reach a satisfactory level .

In response to this rumor, Fanno also gave an official response: the APP can be used normally and will continue to support users and merchants. However, its CEO announced internally that the company will reduce investment in activities outside of its core business, and Fanno, whose expansion plans have been hindered, is one of the key targets for reduced investment.

From the multiple reports, it can be seen that Fanno itself has some problems. According to the AppStore version information, Fanno was updated frequently at first, about 4 to 5 times a month, but the most recent update was on April 23, and no new version has been released since then.

"Fanno has stopped releasing loans. All orders for June, July and August are in the process of being settled," a seller revealed. Although there are still a few orders every day, they dare not ship anymore for fear of losing all their money. After asking other sellers on the platform, the editor found that Fanno's delay in releasing loans to sellers is not an isolated case.

In addition to Fanno, Dmonstudio, which we mentioned earlier, also has constant problems. Unlike Fanno, which focuses on the European market, Dmonstudio covers more than 100 countries around the world and has its own overseas warehouses in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and other regions. It only takes 5-15 working days to deliver products to consumers.

Relevant information shows that Dmonstudio’s domain name was registered in November 2021, but in early 2022, its official website issued an announcement stating: "Starting from February 11, the website operation will be shut down." This means that Dmonstudio has only been operating for three months, and ByteDance has not explained the specific reasons for the closure of the platform.

But ByteDance has put a lot of effort into it. Not only did it poach nearly a hundred core members from SHEIN, it also rated the project as S-level. Related matters are reported directly to the president of Douyin e-commerce. The team is also equipped with customer service in the corresponding languages ​​to serve the needs of users in different countries and regions.

In addition to building platforms, ByteDance is also investing in cross-border e-commerce. In 2021, ByteDance invested in cross-border e-commerce merchant Patonson, cross-border independent station Starlink, cross-border logistics Zongteng Group, and Middle East logistics iMle.

At present, in addition to its own platform, ByteDance also has the dual support of supply chain and logistics, which is enough to show ByteDance's layout in the field of cross-border e-commerce.

Despite the success of TikTok, subsequent overseas expansions have encountered setbacks. In the repeated trials and errors, it will take time to verify what kind of results IfYooou, a subsidiary of ByteDance, can achieve and how long it can survive.

ByteDance

Independent website

IfYooou