However, with so many risks on the platform, why do sellers still choose a third-party platform instead of an independent website as their first step? Why are there so few cross-border e-commerce sellers who have successfully built an independent website? Because building an independent website is not easy, and it is even more difficult than opening a store on the platform. You should know that a large part of cross-border sellers do not have any programming foundation, do not understand SE0-related knowledge, let alone talk about off-site traffic.
In order to figure out how to build an independent website in the Middle East, the author was invited by a friend to meet a “barley” who had made a name for himself on Souq a long time ago, and talk about how to transform to an independent website. After the communication, the author deeply realized that even if you are very successful on Souq, it is not easy to build an independent website. Before we prepare to build an independent website, let’s take a look at which parts are the key “parts” that make up the independent website. Only by mastering these can we be relaxed and have a clear idea of how to build an independent website.
Product selection.
Product selection, as the name implies, is to choose the products to sell. If you want to enter the female products market, you can consider beauty products, jewelry, etc.; if you plan to make functional products, you can consider tools, outdoor equipment, fishing gear, etc., and so on. After the category is selected, use some product selection tools to see how the selected products are sold in the market, the distribution of buyers in different countries, the sales years, etc., and then determine the products to be made. After the product is selected, you can start looking for suppliers. You must find qualified ones and compare prices. You can check the supplier’s company age, factory size and other information on the 1688 website. If you think it’s good, you can ask the supplier to send samples to check the product quality.
It should be noted that in the Middle East, some products are banned from sale, such as religious books, adult products, tobacco, etc., so you should prepare for a survey of consumer habits before selecting products.
Product pricing can be considered from multiple aspects, such as the hardware cost and promotion cost of the product. You can compare the prices of the same industry and choose a price that consumers prefer to try in the market, because price is also one of the important factors that determine sales. When the website has traffic but no orders, you can also consider lowering the price of the product appropriately.
Positioning.
The positioning of the website is very important and will directly affect whether the product can gain a foothold in the market in the future. The positioning of the website should meet the needs and aesthetics of consumers. So when our product is determined, we must clarify which consumer group in the market our product is targeting and which countries and regions in the Middle East, and accurately position the website, which will also facilitate the promotion of the website in the later stage.
Website building.
To build an independent website, you must build a website. To build a website, should you choose a reliable outsourcing company or build your own team, or a free open source system?
Open source systems include OpenCart, Magento, IMCart, WordPress, etc. These are all free website building systems.
If you choose to build a website by yourself, the seller needs to buy a server and install the website by himself. This requires the staff who builds the website to have programming knowledge and experience in building websites. Of course, some people want to explore by themselves, and if they don’t understand, they can search on Baidu. This is also a method. However, if you choose to build a website by yourself, the time and cost will be far beyond expectations.
If you are already a seller on the platform, and you are doing well, and want to expand further, then it is feasible to build a website by yourself. But if you are just a new seller or just a self-employed seller, it is recommended not to choose this method. First of all, the basic salary of labor is at least 6,000 to 8,000 yuan a month. If you recruit 3 people, it will cost at least 200,000 yuan a year. Moreover, if there is a conflict within the team, the technician will leave halfway through the website development, and the project will face the risk of being stranded. This cost is very high.
So under this premise, if small sellers want to start building their own websites, they may consider outsourcing teams. The systems independently developed by Wangzai’s website building company are all good, such as Shopify and Wix abroad, and SHOPYY in China. Choosing outsourcing is equivalent to solving the cost problem of website technology. You only need to choose the right package/version and pay the relevant fees. The rest is left to professional companies. Just like the saying goes: “We don’t have to build a farm ourselves if we want to drink milk”, the same principle applies. You can specialize in your profession and do what you are good at. Beautify the website. After the website is built, the next step is to beautify and fill the content. At this time, you can hire an artist to be responsible for the product logo design, picture design, advertising picture design, etc. Of course, we must strictly control the exquisiteness of the pictures. Just imagine, when we buy clothes online, aren’t we attracted by the pictures at the first time? Website editing. Website editing here includes product uploading, website column setting, news management, content addition to the help center, SEO setting, etc. Below, the author will tell you some tips on website editing, so that Google can include the content of the website to a greater extent and let consumers search our website information more directly. 1. Article title method: keyword + column page (channel page) + website title.
2. The keyword in the article title only needs to appear once. If it appears twice, it may bring a bad reading experience to users and will also disperse the keyword ranking.
3. The length of the article title should be controlled within 36 characters. The part exceeding the length will not be displayed in the search engine search results. The title is generally set to about 20 characters.
4. The closer the keyword in the article title is, the more important it is. Therefore, when writing the article title, try to put the keyword in the front, but do not affect the user’s reading experience.
5. The company name is generally not used in the article title. The article title can be modified with special words related to season, region, time, etc.
Collection.
The transaction needs to be completed by the buyer to pay the seller, so it is essential to add a suitable collection method to the website background. Generally speaking, the collection of independent stations is mainly divided into online and offline. Online collection methods include PayPal and credit card collection; offline payment methods include PayPal payment request letter, Western Union, and MoneyGram. When collecting payments, please note that if the rejection rate is too high and exceeds the range that the channel can bear, the account will be blocked, but the collected payments will be settled to the merchant.
Logistics.
For logistics, it is recommended to find a reliable logistics company. You only need to set it up in the website backend according to the quotation they provide. Of course, in some countries, logistics are relatively backward, and you need to consult the logistics company in advance whether it can deliver the goods to your door.
Customer service.
Customer service is an indispensable and crucial part of customer experience. When buyers visit the website and need to consult about products, when buyers receive products and need later services, it is very important to find customer service in time for communication and coordination to improve the trust of the website and customer satisfaction.
Promotion.
Promotion can be said to be the most difficult and most important “part” of an independent website. We need to invest a lot of energy to think about how to increase the popularity of the brand website and increase the number of visits to the website. In the early stage, you can choose to place advertisements on Google or some local media to see if there is any effect. Of course, there are also many operation and promotion skills about independent websites on the Internet, and the successful cases of experts can be used as reference.
I hope you don’t think that the promotion of independent websites in the Middle East is too difficult. Although it is an unfamiliar market and an unfamiliar online promotion environment, the logic of promotion is actually very similar. If we have used the Internet to promote one or two good hot products in China, then this method can also be copied to the Middle East independent website, but it needs to be improved according to local conditions. Of course, if you want to quickly test the effect of the website, you can use Facebook ads, Google Ads°, SNS, celebrities, CPM, SEO, and many other things.