Suddenly shut down! The recently popular independent website only survived for 3 months

No matter when, the movements of giants can attract countless attention. The same is true for ByteDance. Its every move in the cross-border e-commerce industry always touches the hearts of countless people in the industry.

Last year, ByteDance entered the cross-border e-commerce market and announced the launch of the independent website platform Fnno, which caused widespread heated discussion. At the end of January this year, there was news that it launched another independent website DMONSTUDIO to compete with SHEIN. Undoubtedly, this news caused quite a stir in the industry, and various industry media competed to analyze and report on it.

However, what caught people off guard was that DMONSTUDIO suddenly announced its closure.

DMONSTUDIO shuts down after only 3 months

Half a month has passed since the news came out, and the industry has not stopped discussing DMONSTUDIO. However, when I was about to open this independent website to study it again yesterday, I found that it could not be opened, and I saw the following announcement:

As can be seen from the picture above, the DMONSTUDIO team regretfully announced that DMONSTUDIO had ceased operations on February 11, 2022, and at the same time told consumers that it would continue to provide after-sales service for the products they purchased on the website.

It is reported that the DMONSTUDIO domain name was registered on November 3, 2021, which means that its survival period is only 3 months and 10 days. Such a short life is really regrettable.

On January 31, a cross-border e-commerce industry media released exclusive news that ByteDance poached more than 100 people from SHEIN and launched the independent fashion site DMONSTUDIO.

At that time, I browsed DMONSTUDIO and found that it had the shadow of SHEIN in its web design style, mode, and products for sale. Later, I also found its traces on Facebook and Instagram. On November 14, 2021, DMONSTUDIO posted its first dynamic on Facebook, which was a promotional content for 11.11, and Instagram was first updated on December 1, 2021. (Before publishing this article, I searched these social media again and could not find its account.)

Although DMONSTUDIO has only been online for a short time, it has already become a mature independent website. According to DMONSTUDIO's previous public information, it launches more than 500 new products every week, covering more than 100 countries and regions, and overseas warehouses throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. With this advantage, consumers only need to place an order on the platform, and all goods will be shipped within 5-15 working days. In terms of after-sales service, DMONSTUDIO also provides multi-language support, worry-free returns and other services.

As we all know, it is very difficult to attract traffic for independent sites. ByteDance, which owns the emerging traffic channel TikTok, announced the launch of DMONSTUDIO, which made many independent site sellers feel threatened.

If the news that DMONSTUDIO is a ByteDance project is confirmed, then DMONSTUDIO has everything, including financial strength, talent advantages, technical means, and traffic. The sudden closure of the website and social accounts is confusing. However, industry insiders have previously analyzed DMONSTUDIO and pointed out that ByteDance's move does not seem to be a serious one, but more like a site to test the waters and play around. Now it seems that his words have come true.

Benchmarking SHEIN has become a hot word, is the wolf coming?

There is no doubt that SHEIN is the pinnacle of independent websites, and many ordinary independent website sellers can hardly catch up. Therefore, in recent years, many capitals and giants have entered the market and laid out this track. In most of the independent website projects they announced, we have seen the shadow of "SHEIN". Some projects even directly stated in the introduction that they are "benchmarking SHEIN". In the cross-border e-commerce industry, "benchmarking SHEIN" has become a hot word. As long as this word is used, it will definitely attract a lot of attention.

In recent years, there are indeed many projects that are benchmarking SHEIN, such as Alibaba's "quietly" launched fast fashion independent station brand AllyLikes, Antarctic E-commerce's cross-border e-commerce project Fommos, and Quansuquanliang founded by Zhang Xiaopei, the former CTO of Chehaoduo, etc. Behind all of them are capital or Internet giants.

It can be said that SHEIN is now facing a situation where there are many wolves around. But can their appearance really shake SHEIN's position? I think not.

You know, SHEIN's real strength lies in the supply chain, which is an advantage it has built after years of accumulation. It is difficult for other competitors or latecomers to imitate, let alone surpass. Moreover, after years of hard work, SHEIN has achieved remarkable success in overseas markets, and its brand and reputation have gradually taken shape, with a large number of loyal consumers.

In Europe and the United States, SHEIN is rapidly conquering the fast fashion market. The latest news shows that in the United States, SHEIN has occupied 30% of the fast fashion market share. Its rapid growth has even threatened the status of some established fast fashion companies, such as Spain's Inditex and Sweden's H&M. At the same time, SHEIN became the world's most downloaded shopping app in April 2021.

Since it is not easy to create the next SHEIN, why are capital and giants still competing to get in?

On the one hand, SHEIN, which is still in a rapid growth period, has set a good example for them. A senior person in the industry once said that the investment environment has become less and less ideal in recent years, and it is difficult for capital to find good projects. Cross-border e-commerce is one of the few industries that has achieved positive growth during the epidemic. In this industry, SHEIN has set a perfect example, which has given capital and giants unlimited imagination.

On the other hand, as overseas consumers are becoming more and more accustomed to buying high-quality, low-priced and richly selected clothing through cross-border consumption, offline clothing stores have closed down one after another due to the epidemic, and consumption power has gradually shifted to online. At this time, more people have realized the advantages of this shopping method. In addition, China has a strong supply chain advantage to support the low cost and extremely fast change frequency of fast fashion clothing.

Cross-border e-commerce is diversified, and independent sites are indispensable

I believe that many people in the cross-border e-commerce industry have clearly felt that a diversified cross-border e-commerce landscape is gradually taking shape. In addition to platforms such as Amazon, there are also independent sites that are gaining popularity again. In recent years, social e-commerce has also been emerging.

Among them, independent sites are indispensable. In fact, before the epidemic, many sellers had deployed independent sites. According to feedback, some people have achieved a lot of results. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the popularity and discussion of independent sites have increased twice, once shortly after the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, and the other time was after the Amazon account ban in 2021.

To this day, you can still see sellers discussing entering the independent site market on many platforms. For example, someone recently asked how much money is needed to set up an independent site and whether it is appropriate to enter the market now.

Sellers choose to build independent websites because they have natural advantages. First of all, compared with platforms, the initiative of traffic is in the hands of sellers themselves. On the other hand, unlike platform sellers, independent website sellers are subject to fewer restrictions. When the platform constantly changes the rules due to changing situations and is caught off guard, the independent website can still operate steadily and unaffected.

Most importantly, among various channels, independent websites have a clear trend of taking off. Among them, Shopify, which is talked about a lot, has a clear momentum of development.

US media Insider Intelligence estimates that US e-commerce sales will grow by 16.1% this year, breaking the $100 million mark to reach $106 million. Amazon's e-commerce position is under threat, and Shopify now accounts for 40% of Amazon's total sales, ranking second .

Not only that, Shopify's stock price has soared 48 times in five years , and its net profit in the third quarter of 2021 soared 501%, surpassing Amazon. Shopify's latest 2021 financial report will be released before the U.S. stock market opens on the same day (next Wednesday, February 16), so everyone can look forward to it.

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