In the past year or two, to “ The Four Little Dragons ” As represented by “ Full hosting ” Players surge to the independent station “ Explosive website ” This niche has created a strong impact. Especially in the low and medium price explosion station, it is an unprecedented winter, it is reported that even the old North American chain Dollar General and Dollar Tree have tens of thousands of stores “ Local snake ” All right “ Full hosting ” The extreme low price offensive of cross-border e-commerce platform pulls up the defense line, then, as the slimmer “ Explosive website ” The living situation is not difficult to imagine.
Of course, more efficient “ Full hosting ” Players appear, just “ Explosive website ” Part of the puzzle. From the increasingly high traffic cost to the data privacy policy to overturn the flow logic, and then to the increasingly rich supply side to force the rapid update of products, in the past few years, the independent station this cross-border e-commerce position has suffered several shocks.
“ Full hosting ” The platform is not the first obstacle to the independent station, nor will it be the last one, but it does once again issue a sharp interrogation to the independent station: when the old fighting method gradually fails, how to find a new way to live between the wind and waves?
part1
Difficulties in the survival of independent stations
1, the rise in the cost of buying traffic is a fatal blow to persuade businesses to quit.
Data shows that in 20211 alone, Facebook's return on AD spend will decrease by nearly 30%, CPM costs will increase by 28.3%, and the price of paid search ads will increase by nearly 15%.
Over the next two years, traffic costs continued to soar. The barriers to building a site have been lowered, but the barriers to starting a site have been raised: some companies say advertising costs have risen by as much as five times to get the same amount of traffic. Once, by “ Social media revolution ” The low cost and accurate traffic brought by the independent station laid the foundation for the prosperity of the station, but it also buried the foreshadowing of the shock due to the policy and algorithm changes of the platform and equipment. — The implementation of the iOS14.5 privacy policy in the second half of 2021 and Google's official cancellation of third-party cookies from 2024 are the best proof.
2, “ Full hosting ” The model of the platform has appeared, bringing impact and extrusion.
Starting from the third quarter of 2022, several companies adopted “ Full hosting ” The platform of the model has appeared one after another, and in just one year, it has made rapid progress, which has further squeezed the living space of low-priced and explosive independent stations below the waist. Both have considerable overlap in market positioning and mode.
To some extent, there is a subtle &ldquo between the total support platform and the independent station. Isomorphism ” But the former will “ Efficiency ” Two words to do the extreme, the rear end through “ Moving pin system ” With “ Bidding management ” It ensures the price competitiveness and product popularity of the platform, and realizes the accurate backforcing of product updates and profit levels of supply chain enterprises; The front-end algorithm is similar to the domestic Pin-duo, with the conversion rate as the core to do traffic distribution, prioritize the push of low customer orders, high orders of goods, coupled with its huge and strong buyers, investment and investment flow team to do the bottom support, and ultimately create a cost-effective characteristics of the “ Giant distribution independent station ” .
In the face of such a new type of player, independent merchants need to consider not only adjusting pricing strategies to prevent a direct collision with them in the low and medium price range, but also to withstand a series of chain effects brought about by the rise of the latter.
In addition to the other party is better at the same price, whether it is logistics, leading to the increase of the cost of independent stations, or suppliers through “ Full hosting ” It has become a new opponent of its own, which has brought great impact to the cross-border e-commerce sellers of independent stations and explosive models, making them more and more shaky.
Then, the independent station is really unable to turn the tide? Naturally not, independent station also has its own unique advantages, as long as we maximize the advantages to play out, get rid of “ Homogenization” Low price competition, you can walk out of a new road.
part2
Advantages of independent station itself and how to transform?
1, the explosive station is adjusted to boutique station, vertical station, in order to give play to the unique advantages inherent in independent stations.
In fact, the independent station has a lot of content worth digging, such as SEO, Digital PR, affiliate marketing, community operation and maintenance, these are knowledge, but they are not explosive stations can do. If the independent station players fail to transform in time and adjust the explosive station to a boutique station and a vertical station, the end of decay will obviously accelerate.
In the European and American markets, consumers have a relatively solid understanding of brands, and the market share of private brands is very high. Overseas consumers who pursue individuality are more willing to choose brand independent shopping malls for shopping, which provides excellent commercial genes for the development of DTC brand independent stations.
Build your own brand, let the brand become synonymous with independent stations, then low-price competition will be far away from you. According to the survey, of the 400 million people in the United States, there are only 100 million users who are really low-price sensitive, and the other 300 million are middle-class people who can accept both low-level models and brand value models. Capturing the consumption tastes of this group is the key.
2, personalized consumer-led market, not affected by low-price products, we want to do the flat replacement of local brands, rather than domestic competitors.
For foreign consumption, the biggest advantage of Chinese goods is that they are more competitive in price with the same quality, which relies on China's perfect industrial chain and is also the fundamental reason for the rise of cross-border e-commerce in China. However, due to the precipitation of exchange, communication, trust and time, we often can only do the lowest profit products. Unable to penetrate into foreign markets where local brands reach.
In fact, in the long run, using the advantages of China's industrial chain, purely from the product point of view, we can completely replace the other brand effect, but in the emotional, acceptance degree, is still at a disadvantage, want to build their own brand, and local brands competing, is a long and full of twists and turns of the road. We can start with personalized consumers and quietly replace each other with emerging brand forces.
Emotional recognition is the sharpest means we can use to pry open the consumer's hardest shell for foreign brands, it is difficult, but it is a general trend, worth our efforts, for now, there are already a large number of sellers, open this road, start from the culture, publicity, demand and other aspects, to create a brand recognized by foreign consumers, Gradually began to get rid of Chinese goods, low price and low quality such an inherent impression.
3, deeply cultivate differentiation, pay attention to the unmet needs of specific groups, POD customization model or the best choice.
In the face of the displacement of localized brands, it takes great courage and time to reach it little by little, the process is tortuous, but it is much easier to just pay attention to the personalized demand market, or the unmet needs of specific groups of people, and at the same time, it is also the best entry point for creating personal brands. From this aspect, it is fully built to cover all specific groups. Will be one of the next directions of Independence Station.
For example, the yoga pants category has long been defeated by hundreds of Chinese merchants, but yoga pants designed specifically for children, black people, overweight people, LGBT people have not been made.
And such needs abound, emerge in endless, and will continue to emerge, each specific group of people, are a set of unopened treasure and Treasury, and POD clothing customization model, can be highly flexible docking these specific groups, whether it is a consumer's own design products, or independent sellers according to each other's needs designed products, All will be in “ Full hosting ” Under the impact of low prices, it opens a more efficient and flexible path for independent stations.
4, the biggest advantage of independent stations is your design concept and text content.
The same kind of goods hang on the Internet to sell, the difference is that most people just sell goods, and independent merchants update blog posts every day, Vlog, the use of products, functions and necessity are made clear, the formation of their own fixed consumer community, users recognize your independent mold products, so as to be able to convert content into pricing power.
And we now turn the same commodity into the same category of commodity, through the way of POD clothing customization, micro-innovation, micro-design, change some elements, create “ New ” Products that can still meet the needs of consumers, coupled with content marketing, so that customers can more recognize your concept or natural recognition of design elements, such as the addition of specific groups of slogans, political positions and other elements, so that your independent station becomes their gathering place, or create a new specific group of people, is the best model for your independent station.
END
Independent station, in fact, the best state is to be able to become a hardcore crop, when you are in the face of selling, malicious reports, platform flow restrictions, frozen funds, it is still stable, no need to worry, can help you supplement cash flow, become a permanent position for your brand promotion, but want to do this, you need to carefully manage and build, POD clothing customization mode, can help you crack the homogeneity, to make their own “ Boutique ” Over time, you can be fearless of wind and rain and become a hardcore crop.
