The seller spent 1 million in a month. Is it difficult to run an independent website in this trend?

Independent websites are gaining popularity. Should sellers follow suit and join the game?

In the first half of this year, independent station projects have repeatedly received financing. Not only are investors optimistic, but the country also encourages sellers to build brands through independent stations. After the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce proposed to subsidize independent station sellers with a maximum of 2 million yuan, Guangzhou also expressed its intention to give money to independent station sellers.

The industry is optimistic. In the past two years, sellers have entered the independent website market. After entering the market, they found that independent websites are far from being as easy as they imagined, and they burn more money than Amazon and other platforms. So independent websites are not a blue ocean?

While many sellers are still trying to figure out the complicated strategies for independent sites, Jihong Co., Ltd., a big seller that has been deeply engaged in independent sites for many years, is taking the lead and launching a SaaS service platform.

Good news, Guangzhou will also give money to independent website sellers

Some time ago, the news that Shenzhen will subsidize independent website sellers up to 2 million yuan was all over the screen. It is reported that after the government’s measure to subsidize independent website sellers came out, DaMai Cross-border Link has applied for this subsidy.

According to information from Cross-Border Link, the relevant independent sites under the company have participated in applying for subsidies for the cross-border e-commerce independent site project, but the final result has not yet been clarified and is subject to the public announcement.

In fact, in order to encourage cross-border sellers to develop independent websites, policies are being implemented in various places.

The editor learned that in order to encourage traditional manufacturing enterprises and commercial enterprises to use cloud service (SaaS) website building tools, Guangzhou Panyu District will provide financial support to enterprises.

Among them, subsidies will be given based on the actual expenditure of enterprises on annual service fees for cloud service (SaaS) tools and overseas independent website construction and decoration costs. The maximum total amount for each enterprise shall not exceed 150,000 yuan, and the maximum number of enterprises shall not exceed 100. The support period is from July 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021.

Some time ago, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Foreign Trade Business Forms and Models", proposing to encourage foreign trade enterprises to build independent websites and support professional website platforms to optimize and improve service capabilities. Explore the application of regional chain terminals in trade segments. By 2025, a group of foreign trade segment service platform companies with strong international influence will be formed.

I believe that under the favorable background of the country encouraging the establishment of independent stations, more regions will introduce policies to support independent stations.

Independent station projects have repeatedly received financing, and Jihong shares intends to build a SaaS service platform

Recently, Amazon has blocked a large number of e-commerce brands on its platform. Many cross-border e-commerce companies on the A-share market have issued warnings, and platform sellers are increasingly feeling that their future is uncertain. However, in recent years, independent e-commerce brands represented by SHEIN have made rapid progress.

Independent station sales Jihong shares focuses on independent station e-commerce business. In the second quarter of this year, the maximum daily order volume increased from 30,000 orders last year to 50,000 orders.

Thanks to the huge success of big sellers such as SHEIN, capital has been particularly favorable to cross-border DTC brands this year. The latest news shows that PatPat, a big seller of maternal and child products, received $600 to $700 million in financing in one month, and Cider also announced the completion of a $130 million Series B financing, with a valuation of over $1 billion.

In the first half of this year, the financing situation in the independent station field was even more encouraging. According to statistics from Baijing Chuhai, a total of 12 DTC overseas projects received financing in the first half of this year, including Xike, Quanliang Quansu, Cider, and Xinchao Wuxian.

In addition, 9 domestic e-commerce SaaS projects received financing in the first half of the year.

Independent sites have not only become a track favored by capital, but also a key development direction for big sales. It is reported that Jihong Co., Ltd.'s SaaS service platform will be launched soon.

Jihong shares stated that the company has leveraged its successful experience in cross-border e-commerce business in Southeast Asia over the years to export the various process links, business systems and application modules of the e-commerce business in the form of products, and provide a full-link one-stop cross-border e-commerce solution including supply chain services, mall construction, intelligent advertising, cross-border payment, warehousing and logistics for small and medium-sized merchants, brand merchants and Internet celebrities to achieve cross-border e-commerce sales. The SaaS service platform has started internal testing in May 2021, and the official version is expected to be launched by the end of 2021.

Affected by FB's policy adjustment, the revenue of independent station sales dropped by nearly 70%

Under the influence of Amazon's account ban, many sellers have regarded independent websites as a "lifeline". Coupled with the recent policy support from some local governments, the trend of switching to independent websites has increased.

It is undeniable that independent websites are indeed a hot topic and an important channel for sellers to develop cross-border e-commerce. However, sellers must be aware that independent websites are not that easy to run. After independent websites became popular again last year, many sellers set up their own independent websites, but they were shelved after less than half a year of operation.

The third reason: it costs too much money, it is difficult to recruit operational talents, and it is difficult to obtain traffic.

If you want to see quick results when building an independent website, you must spend money. Many novices have no idea when making products. They just test the products, and then settle down to know which ones are hot products and focus on promoting them. So spending money is a must. A seller once said that he burned 1 million in a month, but didn't even see a splash.

Operational talent is also a headache for sellers who run independent websites. Talents with relevant experience either go out on their own or demand extremely high salaries. Since 2020, the demand for independent website operation talents has exploded, and salaries have basically reached new highs every month. Some time ago, there was news that the monthly salary for independent website operation positions has exceeded 20K. Recruiting for independent website operations has become a difficult task in the eyes of HR.

Based on this, some independent site sellers began to consciously cultivate relevant talents, etc., but this method has a problem, that is, the speed and effectiveness are slow.

In addition, a big reason why many sellers fail to build their own independent websites or even suffer losses is that “traffic is difficult to obtain”.

We know that the channels for obtaining traffic for independent sites mainly rely on FB, Google, etc. Once problems occur in these places, the traffic and even the performance will be greatly affected.

This is the case with Zeshang Technology, a popular independent website seller. According to its 2021 semi-annual report, its revenue dropped by 67.4% due to FB's policy adjustment.

According to its semi-annual report, the main reason for the decline in revenue was the company's continued losses due to the continuous investment in advertising fees for the independent station business. As cash flow was insufficient to support the continued investment in the independent station business, all independent station businesses except CHOIES were closed during the reporting period. Secondly, due to the adjustment of industry policies, advertising service demand and FACEBOOK policies, the advertising service business was difficult to carry out, and therefore the advertising service business was significantly reduced during the period.

Therefore, the editor reminds that before setting up an independent website, sellers must consider the above three difficulties to see whether their own strength can solve these problems, and remember not to follow the trend.