Pros and Cons of Having an Independent Website and Choosing Content for Website Building

1. Website Construction

The meaning of an independent site is that the seller opens the website by themselves, achieves ideal sales through the website traffic of their own store, and establishes their own sales channel on the Internet.

Advantages:

The traffic, brand impression, visibility brought by promotion all belong entirely to your independent site. Not limited by the platform, no competition with peers on the platform.

Disadvantages:

It is difficult to start, the promotion costs are high, but the longer you do it, the higher the income and visibility.

Website Construction:

1. Choose a domain name. Your domain name should be unique, short, and easy to remember. Choosing top-level domain TLDs like .com, .cn, .co, .net are all top-level domains, but not every top-level domain is popular.

2. Choose a closed-source website building platform. Platforms like Shopify, Shopyy, etc., do not open their source code to sellers.

3. Choose an open-source website building platform. Platforms like Opencart, Zencart, Magento, Ueeshop, etc., are all open-source website building tools.

2. Product Selection

Whether you are doing independent design or choosing to purchase and modify, you can select suitable manufacturers or suppliers on platforms such as http://1688.com, 1688 Cross-border, and AliExpress to obtain some popular and worthwhile products. You can refer to my answer for specific tutorials on how to select sources on Alibaba. This is the quickest and most convenient way, and is also a common purchasing method, suitable for small-scale/novice sellers.

If you have connections or know manufacturers, you can also contact them directly, but the selection on the platform may not be as extensive. There are also various issues such as packaging, shipping, and warehouse management to consider.

This 1688 Image Search Browser Extension is really useful. Just hover your mouse over a picture and it will immediately help you search for similar items and prices on various platforms, saving time and effort.

Suitable for scenarios where you check competitor sources on platforms like AliExpress and Taobao, and assess sales volume. If the sales volume is high, you can source from 1688/Taobao and sell on AliExpress or other foreign trade platforms. (Sometimes the products on 1688 are more expensive than on Taobao).

The AliPrice Image Search Browser Extension has over 50,000 users worldwide on Google, making it quite trustworthy.

Three, promotion and traffic generation

Advantages of independent stations: Sellers have independent pricing power and do not have to worry about price wars with peer sellers. Disadvantages: Independent stations are more afraid of lack of traffic. The reason is that platforms have a huge customer traffic volume, so independent stations need to invest heavily in promotion in the early stage. For cross-border e-commerce sellers operating platforms, customers do not belong to you, they just maintain loyalty to the platform. In contrast, with independent stations, customers find you through your brand, and with successful promotion and good customer experience combined, you can make money based on the reputation of the independent station.

Internet celebrity and celebrity effect

Finding celebrities with ready-made traffic on social platforms can successfully drive customers to the website. With the development of self-media, the cost is generally relatively low.

Advertising

You can find advertisers, TV stations, internet companies, etc. These channels will also bring a large amount of traffic, but the cost is relatively high.

SEO

Search engine optimization is an important promotion method. You can invest in developing keywords for your website, create some high-quality external links, and publish articles about your brand or industry. However, this takes a long time and is free.

Fourth, shipping mode

If the previous steps are completed, you can consider shipping. Here are different shipping modes:

First type: domestic self-shipping

You need to have your own warehouse, pricing, packaging, and mailing. You can purchase goods from 1688, send them to a logistics point, fill in the customer's address, and ship the goods. The advantage is that you can promise the delivery time by yourself, but the disadvantage is that the pricing needs to be higher than the platform's pricing.

Second type: dropship

Purchase goods on AliExpress, directly dispatched by overseas suppliers, AliExpress will provide packaging and delivery services.

Third type: overseas warehouse

You need an overseas warehouse and stable suppliers. The advantage is that the location of the goods is overseas, increasing sales exposure and raising the selling price of the goods. The disadvantage is that you need to stock up, facing inventory risks and capital costs.

Fourth type: Amazon FBA

Store goods in Amazon warehouses, and Amazon will pick, pack, and deliver them to the end customer. You can combine it with your own Amazon store for delivery and charge a service fee.

Fifth type: virtual overseas warehouse

Between domestic and overseas models. After receiving orders, paste foreign address and ship from overseas warehouse. The advantage is that it can control time and logistics cost, no need to stock up and have inventory risk, in line with multi-SKU operation mode. The disadvantage is that logistics issues may arise during peak seasons.