Under the epidemic, cross-border e-commerce in 2021 is still hot, but under the grand scene, the seller's life is not good.
With the influx of a large number of sellers, the intensification of the internal volume of the platform, the blockage of logistics, the dilution of profits, and the increasingly high cost of compliance, it has become more and more difficult for sellers to make money. Sellers who rely on platform traffic to convert customers face an increasingly difficult living environment. To a certain extent, this also forces platform sellers to find other ways out in a red sea.
Independent stations have become an inevitable option.
Different from the situation that the domestic e-commerce market is monopolized by the comprehensive e-commerce platform, in the field of overseas e-commerce, third-party platforms such as Amazon have not yet formed a monopoly. Overseas market private brand market share is high, competition is scattered, consumer mentality and habits are formed, most of the European and American private brands share of 18%-45%, overseas consumers have high recognition and acceptability of their own brands, and the development of DTC independent stations is naturally friendly. With the development of DTC independent stations, global e-commerce is slowly changing from the previous centralized platform e-commerce to platform e-commerce + vertical platform, and the platform and independent stations may be divided into two worlds.
However, how can sellers do a good job of independent stations? And how do you change the inertia of thinking?
It is easy to do an independent station, but it is difficult to do a good job as an independent station
SaaS website building tools do reduce the entry threshold of independent station sellers, forming the illusion of "everyone can stand independently", Zeng Wenqing, founder and CEO of Guangzhou Zhizhen Information Technology Co., Ltd., believes that the profit space of independent independent stations seems to be larger than the platform, but in fact, it is not so simple and easy to operate, from the perspective of the overall operation of independent stations, technical operation processes, the continuous operation of the site is even more difficult than the platform, and enterprises will also face many challenges from product selection, operation to sales and repurchase.
Different from the seller in the past in the platform established public domain through bidding, promotion to grab limited traffic, the independent station itself does not bring its own traffic, sellers need to through social media, search engines and other channels, the traffic into their own website or landing page, and then private domain conversion. In addition to the drainage test on the marketing side, in order to form brand potential, sellers also need to analyze consumer user portraits and optimize consumers' user experience journey. The key product selection, payment, logistics and other full links to do a good job in brand management.
How to transform the platform thinking into an independent station thinking is the first step to do a good job of independent station.
Zeng Wenqing said that the core cognition of the DTC brand going to sea is the user's thinking, really serving the user, not the product, which is also the most essential and bottom difference between the "selling" merchants and the "selling service" merchants.
Unlike the platform, which pays more attention to the ranking of the site, the independent station pays more attention to brand and product exposure, which is embodied in: a buyer wants a certain product, if it is purchased on the platform, it will directly search for the product, and then click on the product that ranks higher, if it feels good, it will make an order to buy; and if it is purchased on the independent site, he may conduct a pan-search on Facebook or Google in advance, when seeing a specific type of product evaluation video or the endorsement recommendation of a celebrity Internet celebrity, Will go to search for the brand, if you think the product is good, and then lead to purchases. This is the buyer's buying thinking, which in turn reflects the difference in the operational thinking of the platform and the independent station. If you use platform thinking to operate independent stations, the final result is likely to be to spend a lot of money, but only get a small gain.
Therefore, Zeng Wenqing suggested that as an independent site seller, we must do a good job in these aspects: find out which groups are their own users; understand how to obtain users; understand the user's mind and tone; and understand how to retain user value for a long time.
"DTC brands should find their own positioning, and then find core customer groups to improve products around their pain points. Only when the goal is clear and the overall tone is set, future market activities can better focus on these and reach users through various channels. Zeng Wenqing said that once customers first contact the brand through the drainage model, what the brand has to do is to leave them as much as possible and establish a long-term active "brand interaction" to improve the conversion rate and repurchase rate. Independent site brands need to have a deep understanding of user portraits, establish user stickiness with products, and build their own user traffic pools. Sellers should think about how to make marketing decisions, content creativity and channel promotion based on the needs and habits of foreign buyers, so that overseas target customers can accurately understand the brand information and product activities of the merchants, and provide targeted information throughout the customer's life journey and current life cycle stage.
Therefore, the independent station should throw away the thinking of selling goods, adjust the previous concept of "e-commerce as a product" to "e-commerce as a service", and establish a personalized, customized and continuous product service and experience for users.
Independent saaS, how to help the brand globalization?
In addition to the change of thinking, independent station sellers also need to fully visualize the business link, make the business process more transparent, efficient, and make the business easier, so that the brand can be built overseas faster. For sellers, this is not an easy process, and sellers urgently need to borrow independent station SaaS.
However, in what ways does independent SaaS need to empower DTC brands to go global?
Zeng Wenqing said that in essence, Saas is a tool product, undertaking business systems, different companies have different uses, but the ultimate purpose is based on business method precipitation, the best path to provide services to customers, quickly find new ways, empower customers with the most basic capabilities. Among the existing tools on the market, few companies can provide all-round empowerment based on refined operation systems like Zhizhen Technology. The brand overseas full-link digital SaaS solution launched by Zhizhen Technology - Chaodian Shoplus, which is technology- and data-oriented, provides independent station SaaS, data operation BI and expert-level operation support services.
By opening up the links of website building, marketing, operation, logistics, payment and other links in the whole link of the brand going to sea, we can scientifically and systematically help Chinese enterprises to build brands overseas, spread brands, achieve sales growth, and ultimately build a global brand.
Zeng Wenqing said that this is based on the understanding of cross-border e-commerce processes and pain points, deep thinking about the application of digital technology in the industry, relying on six years of data accumulation and experience precipitation, to create a one-stop solution for brands with AI, big data and other capabilities in the industry to go overseas.
"The bottom of the Shoplus business of Chaodian is a set of refined systems that empower sellers to do business in a more objective way, and can make decisions and judgments in advance." Through system support and big data processing, improve the digital operation ability of sellers, under our system, we can more clearly and quickly improve the links, pull through the flow of goods, users, orders, and capital. Zeng Wenqing said that Chaodian Shoplus can quickly understand the needs of sellers, understand the pain points of demand, understand how to stimulate users' desire to continue to buy, and obtain traffic in diversified channels. It has formed a unique understanding of user insights, how to find the lowest cost customer acquisition channels, and helping sellers promote the matching of people and goods.
Zeng Wenqing shared a case: R is an independent station brand built by traditional factories, due to the limitations of the transformation of cross-border e-commerce itself by traditional traders and foreign trade factories, as well as problems such as talents and operational experience, it has not been able to break through the bottleneck. Chaodian Shoplus helps R how to change from positioning thinking, through the system to do user research and feedback, the previous traditional industrial links are cut open, providing them with an overall SOLUTION of DTC, giving strategic solution output at the underlying architecture level, and quickly building services. In view of the fact that R does not have a suitable website building tool, the customer abandonment rate is high, the repurchase rate is low, and the user brand loyalty is insufficient, Chaodian Shoplu has transformed it: from the aspects of website building, link optimization, payment conversion, social media operation and word-of-mouth marketing. Through the cooperation with Super StoreLus, R achieved considerable results in two months: achieved 110% increase in sales; increased the conversion rate of independent orders by 79%; and Facebook gained 7,000+ fans.
"We are different from other independent station SaaS tools evolution path, we are based on the original business capabilities, as well as a deep understanding of the industry after making a judgment, slowly increase personalized business, do deeper service penetration, we have our own technology, products and channels on the long-term precipitation." Zeng Wenqing said, "At the same time, we can provide personalized services for different users. ”
As cross-border e-commerce enters the stage of refined operation, independent station SaaS also needs to reshape its thinking, continuously update, upgrade and iterate, and keep up with the needs of sellers. "Shoplus is also constantly breaking the existing thinking and validating to keep up with seller needs and industry developments. Through industry research and audience positioning, we can obtain more accurate cognition and empower it with a continuous iterative upgrade of the full-link data and service ecosystem platform. Zeng Wenqing said.
At present, global e-commerce is constantly developing, and overseas consumption scenarios are gradually migrating from offline to online. However, the market is constantly changing, the platform is no longer the only choice for Chinese manufacturing to go to sea, DTC independent station is becoming a new main channel, how to seize the opportunity to achieve brand overtaking in the sea corner, is testing Chinese sea go to sea.
Chaodian Shoplus exclusively released the "2021 China Cross-border E-commerce Independent Station White Paper", and the background contact was collected.