Why Must You Have an Independent Website/Official Site for Foreign Trade? An In-Depth Comparison of Independent Foreign Trade Sites and B2B International Platforms

Independent e-commerce platforms gained widespread recognition due to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet many foreign trade companies remain unfamiliar with them. They struggle to grasp their advantages and disadvantages, and wonder why businesses would build independent sites when platforms like Alibaba's International Station already exist. This article compares independent platforms with international stations to clarify their fundamental differences and help you determine which option is right for your business.

Foreign trade independent website, usually refers to the English (small language) independent website/official website specially designed for international trade, which does not rely on any third-party platform (such as Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, etc.), and is built and managed by the enterprise or individual independently. This kind of website is usually used for displaying and selling products, as well as providing corporate information and services directly to global consumers or business customers.

It is worth noting that the real independent station domain name and website source code must be in their own hands, you can have permission to relocate the site at any time, change the domain name resolution. Many foreign trade enterprises official website source code is controlled by the station company, they do not have access, and even some official website domain name is also attributed to the station company.

Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Futong Tianxia, Fanke Website Builder, and China Enterprise Power all offer independent website services. Users can independently launch and design websites on their platforms. These platforms operate as SaaS website builders, imposing significant limitations on functionality and design. Control and ownership remain with the platform providers rather than the businesses themselves. Speed and SEO optimization are also challenging, meaning these platforms do not constitute true independent websites.

Do independent station in order to SEO results and speed, must use foreign servers, with all the permissions, preferably using open source programs such as WordPress to build, scalable, easy to use.

Why do foreign trade must have an independent site?

The essence of closing a deal is trustTrust comes first, orders follow. Customers place orders with us only when they believe we can deliver stable, reliable products/services that solve their problems or help them make money. Customers will always order from the most trusted, reliable supplier—not necessarily the cheapest or the highest quality.

Trust stems from understanding. The more we know about a person or company, the more we trust them. Conversely, we remain wary of unfamiliar individuals or businesses. An official independent website serves as the fastest, easiest, most comprehensive, and most trusted channel for international clients to learn about us (backed by Google). If an export company lacks even a website, relying solely on a Gmail address and self-praise akin to a peddler touting their own wares, it will struggle to earn client trust.

In the absence of offline contact, the official website is the first basis for foreigners to judge whether a company is "real", "reliable" and "professional", and they will carefully check whether the product description is detailed and comprehensive, and whether the contact information is clear, and even check the office location through the street map. They will carefully check whether the product description is detailed and comprehensive, whether the contact information is clear, whether the team introduction is detailed, and even check the office location through the street map.

Ali international station can also be a certain degree of customer understanding of us, but the effect is greatly reduced: customers will certainly go to the peer store comparison, and ultimately fell into the goods than a number of, who price price (generally means poor quality), who will be marketing (bragging) who will get the order.

The effect of foreign trade independent site has good and bad?

Said that the independent site has a lot of people with good results, by the independent site to earn a lot of money. Said it is also a lot of poor results, after investing money and time to get nothing, and finally closed the site to leave the word "useless" evaluation.

accomplishwithdo a good jobCompletely 2 levels, worlds apart. Most people just have a stand-alone station, no in-depth optimization, no high-quality content (pages), no careful maintenance and operation. Just like planting flowers, insert the soil and pour some water, regardless of the probability of growth is not good.

Overseas customers are accustomed to "look at the official website before cooperation", foreign trade independent station is like a high-definition mirror, will be the enterprise's professionalism, credibility, strength of the details of unlimited amplification. Excellent official website is the "golden key" to open the international market; low-quality official website may be labeled as "unreliable" even if the product is excellent.

Independent stations are like cooking, the same ingredients and cookware cooked by different people will have different results. If you find a dish unpalatable, odds are it's not the recipe, but the chef

After so many years of making high-end customized standalone websites and constantly researching conversion rates, speed, design, etc., we at Diamo are very aware of the huge gap between different websites! It's like a roadside stand and Michelin 5!

The technology wasn't there to do that.

The same goes for standalone sites, we at Diamo have been doing high-end custom standalone sites for so many years, constantly researching conversions, speed, design, etc., and we know very well how to make a good foreign trade website that will help you get excellent quality inquiries.

What are the advantages, benefits of foreign trade independent site?

Di engaged in foreign trade business for many years, has been doing a category, changed a few companies. Epidemic impact, switch to do foreign trade website, contact hundreds of foreign trade enterprises. Slight research on foreign trade as well as independent stations, analyze the personal views on the advantages of independent stations.

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have a better suggestion or a different opinion.

Low customer acquisition costs, diverse promotional methods, and a robust traffic pool

The essence of business is trafficNo matter whether it is a physical store or an online store, no matter whether it is selling garbage cans or smart robots, all of them need to get traffic/inquiries. Wine is also afraid of deep alley, in this overcapacity, white-hot competition in the market, no flow of foreign trade enterprises is difficult to survive.

The vast majority of foreign trade business traffic from the online, the Internet. The vast majority of online traffic from Google search, foreigners are used to Google search to find solutions/suppliers, especially foreign trade customers will basically through the Google search filter, understand the supplier.

(indicates contrast)free-standing stationIt is the most effective and reliable channel to get Google search traffic, you can participate in Google search rankings, share URLs, bind to Facebook/youtube, etc.gainFreeflux, you can also spend money to cast Google ads, ask jittery Netflix to bring goods, etc., attracting traffic is very convenient.

Usually use the enabled mailbox to communicate with customers, send development letters, etc. If customers are interested, they will also enter the website through the mailbox URL to view and learn about your company's products, scale, advantages, and whether it is suitable for customer's business, etc. If you think it is suitable, you will send inquiry or reply emails. If you think it is suitable, you will send an inquiry or reply to the e-mail, and it will be a big step closer to a single.

Independent site can get free Google search ranking traffic, do off-site promotion. Google advertising is also directly from the Google website to buy traffic, the price is the lowest. In contrast, Ali from Google and other buy traffic back to resell us, the price is much higher. And there is no free traffic on the international station (low-quality does not count), the ecological closure is not suitable for Google ads and off-site traffic.

When customers enter a B2B International Station store, they constantly receive ads from other stores and inevitably visit competitors' stores to compare prices. Therefore, driving traffic to the International Station is a joke—it's essentially doing the platform and competitors a favor.

With a steady flow of traffic and inquiries, it is also easy to retain talent and recruit good salespeople.

Gain trust and increase conversions

It was mentioned above that the essence of closing a deal is trust and how to gain it with an independent site.Foreign trade customers must be more than one, at the same time with at least 4-6 suppliers in the chat!The most suitable 1-2 suppliers will be selected for the sample order/small order test. Customers will be through the independent station to compare a number of suppliers to do what products, what are the advantages, what is the scale, how professional, whether reliable.

If your company does not have an independent station, and peers have. Or your independent station to do very ordinary, peer's very professional, content and detailed, design and access speed of all aspects are very good, then the customer is more favorable to your counterparts.

For example, we buy a car at the same time to visit a few stores, A brand store decoration is general, the car is arranged very messy, the staff is unkempt, B brand store decoration is very comfortable and low-key but low-key fashion and luxury, the car is arranged neatly, the staff is dressed neatly and the image of a good, very polite attitude is very good. Which brand would you choose in this situation?

An independent website is the face of a business! Like a high-definition mirror, it will magnify the enterprise's professionalism, credibility and strength details infinitely. Excellent official website is the "golden key" to open the international market; low-quality official website may be labeled as "unreliable" even if the product is excellent.

Xiaodi according to years of foreign trade experience and independent station building experience wrote aHow to increase the conversion rate of foreign trade independent site / e-commerce siteThe article, purely dry, introduces some of the ways to improve the conversion rate of independent websites. Do independent station, Diamo is serious and professional.

Low-cost traffic sinks, repositories, creating private domain traffic

China's accession to the WTO has been decades now, AliPlus and other international sites have passed the bonus period, the effect is increasingly declining. If one day your company's Ali international website/Shopify website is not going to renew, the store will be closed. What about the products on it? What about the customers above who can't find you?

Independent station can maintain stable operation with just a few hundred dollars per year, with ownership and control firmly in their hands, and can upload company products/services to the site for customers to pick. It can also be shared with customers through the product URL, and can also be used as a data base for businessmen to check information, etc.

The standalone site can also be used as a low-cost permanent product data storage, display platform, and a way for regular customers to select information and contact us.

It can also be used to create private traffic, regularly upload new product styles or publish articles and other dynamic, synchronized updates to Facebook, Twitter, etc., continuous marketing traffic.

Precise and high quality traffic

Independent station to obtain customers, customers take the initiative to contact us, are accurate from the customer. Customers browse the website to send inquiries to us, first of all, to prove that the customer is a procurement needs, more accurate than the development of the letter to reach the customer. Secondly, customers feel that our products and strength meet each other's needs, so they will send inquiries to us.

So the independent station to the inquiry, the conversion rate is much higher. As long as the business properly follow up, the company's products and prices are appropriate, the order can generally be taken down. In contrast, send development letters to call and other active development methods have poor results, the customer is not accurate.

Of course, some inquiries may be phishing inquiries, spam inquiries, Diamo built the site has a 3-pronged firewall, and spam inquiries blocking function, according to the inquiries real-time adjustments to block. Basically, our website will not receive these phishing and spam inquiries.

Disadvantages of a proactive approach to customer development

Active development of customers means sending development letters, phone calls, exhibitions, ground promotion and so on. Difficulty is relatively large, the effect varies from person to person. Previously, we do foreign trade salesman is very difficult, the company does not have much strength also dare not invest, only a basic package of Alibaba / Made in China network. Excellent quality inquiries are distributed to the relationship, know what they know. We civilian salesman can only rely on their own search for customer information and then send development letters, phone calls. It is difficult to take the initiative to develop customers, the success rate is less than 1%.Why is it difficult?

1. It's hard to get in touch with the right person. It is not easy to find the person who has the authority to make the decision to place the order as well as valid contact information, and even if you work hard to find the email address, the person may not be in that position/company anymore.
2. The other party does not necessarily need a new supplier at this stage. Even if they return emails, they may only ask for prices, ask for free samples to understand the market and so on, often without follow-up.
3. Poor results. You can find customers, and so can your competitors. A client may receive thousands of development letters a month, most of which go into spam mailboxes or are blocked and have a low probability of being opened and viewed.
4. Not a target customer. What is the customer's main product? What price point/quality? Is it imported or made in the country/neighboring countries...? Most of the people we send development letters to are not target customers, and even if we contact them, it is difficult to convert them into orders.
5. High time cost. Searching customer profiles + doing background research + figuring out development letters to contact customers = huge time and effort. Choosing active development means losing time to maintain old customers and learn new knowledge.

P.S.: The contact information in the Canton Fair customer catalog book are false/outdated information, and the development letter 99% was returned.

The ground push is to go abroad to visit and so on, not many companies can do, not to chat in detail. The exhibition actually ended up being reduced to sending development letters, hahaha. The old salesmen of our group are all-powerful what will do: develop customers > arrange for proofing > do invoices > follow up orders > receive > shipments all by themselves. Before foreign trade companies do not have any customer acquisition channels mainly rely on salesmen to develop customers, and now the majority of young salesmen motivation and the ability to develop customers is not enough to rely on the company's channels and advantages of customer acquisition, to put it bluntly is sitting and waiting for customers to reply to the next email.

I've been using Fortis Global Eagle to automatically search for customer information and then send out mass messages. 6 years ago, most of the information searched was incorrect, and only a few letters were returned and not the target customers. Like digging for gold, this area has been dug by many people you still come to dig only by luck.

Disadvantages of foreign trade independent website

There are many advantages of independent websites, but one fatal disadvantage is the natural distribution of free traffic.Must upload quality articles, do Google SEO optimization, and drive traffic in order to get available for quality inquiries.

This isn't really a drawback of independent websites; it applies to any site, even international platforms. Traffic is monopolized by tech giants and must be purchased. Google Search is a relative benefactor, distributing most traffic for free through its search rankings to countless websites. Independent sites serve as the gateway to accessing this free traffic.

Independent sites without good quality content support (articles), SEO optimization, generally do not have good rankings, not to mention the natural search traffic and inquiries. So there are a lot of people who say that independent sites are not effective for this reason.

If you are willing to spend money, spend a few thousand to find us to help you do SEO optimization: write SEO articles + optimization Google SEO + teach you social platform traffic. We guarantee the effect, the effect is not up to standard free of charge has been optimized until you are satisfied, interested in private chat.

If you don't want to spend money, you can write your own articles, learn Google SEO, and sign up for mainstream social media platforms to post and attract traffic, which will also have good results in terms of inquiries. Our blog has corresponding articles tutorials, please move toBlog pageMany people find that redirecting funds from their international platform ads to Google Ads yields significantly better results.

Independent station and international station difference, advantages and disadvantages comparison

Independent station inevitably with Ali international station, China manufacturing network and other B2B platform comparison, they are essentially the same, 2 sides have a lot of supporters. Easily entangled which one to choose, which one is more suitable for you? In fact, B2BP

Conclusion: In fact, B2B platform is essentially an independent station + advertising diversion, but is a collection of many independent stations together into a line into the industry, and then the platform fee for their own diversion to sell advertising space to merchants. the difference between B2B platforms and independent stations is similar to the food court and vendors.

You can understand the B2B platform as a food court.The management (the company behind it) does the venue and publicity to attract traffic (the food court itself has its own traffic attributes), makes a bunch of rules to rent out stalls at a high price, and gathers a bunch of vendors. And make a bunch of advertisement space, stipulate that vendors can only buy advertisement space from themselves to attract traffic.

And independent stations are rather ordinary vendors, freely setting up stalls in other places (school entrances, food market entrances, brick-and-mortar stores, etc.)There is no rent, not so many peers competing viciously, no third-party regulation, and no one to help drive traffic. You can advertise, put signs and other ways to attract traffic, the cost is much lower and much more free.

Xiaodi summarized the following points of foreign trade independent station and international station detailed comparison difference:

The methods for acquiring traffic/inquiries differ.

The only way to get the international station traffic like Ali is to spend money, buy high-priced packages, buy booths, buy exposure and so on, all of them are spending money to buy traffic, and can only spend money to buy traffic.

Although Ali has a free flow to the store, but know that those who know the quality of traffic is too poor, and even some people say it is fake traffic, fake inquiries, interested in their own Baidu. Xiaodi just share the voice of some real users.

Google doesn't accept ads from platform-based website stores, so Ali, MIC and other international website stores can't advertise on Google and can't participate in Google search ranking. The only way to attract traffic is by sharing URLs to customers, but this is a very stupid approach.

There are numerous ways to drive traffic to your independent website, with organic Google search rankings being the primary source—delivering substantial volume and high-quality leads! For faster lead generation, consider Google Ads campaigns or collaborating with TikTok influencers to promote your products. You can also share your website links or products on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The settings can send the URL directly to the customer, and the customer will also take the initiative to enter the independent station to view through the URL in the mailbox when communicating by email.

In summary, the international station traffic is relatively single, the customer surface is relatively narrow, the effect is good or not mainly depends on Ali's attraction strategy, it is obvious that the platform is impossible to take care of the needs of stores in all walks of life. So some industries international station store traffic and inquiries are generally very poor.

Independent station in this regard is much better, diversified traffic diversification, through the social media, forums, offline, search engines, AI search, etc., traffic diversification, for a variety of customers, to obtain more quality traffic.

The cost of traffic/inquiries varies.

The cost of paid traffic to an independent site is also much lower, as the Google search ranking traffic mentioned above is free, as is sharing the URL to social media, etc. The only way to pay for traffic is to put in Google ads, which are much less expensive than buying Aliens windows and the like. The only way to pay for traffic is to invest in Google AdWords, which is a lot less expensive than buying an Ali Window or something like that.

Alibaba essentially makes money by selling traffic, acting as a wholesale traffic provider. The company acquires traffic through methods like Google advertising, on-ground promotions, and paid advertising, then resells this traffic to merchants. Yes, Alibaba itself lacks organic traffic—most of its traffic is purchased. After adding operational costs and profit margins, the traffic is sold to merchants at a significant markup.

Traffic costs are rising steadily, so Alibaba's basic package prices have also increased—from the previous minimum of 29,800 to the current 35,800, which now requires bundling with other products. Yet Alibaba's overall traffic quality and volume are declining.

Now the B2B platform with Taobao Tmall e-commerce platform has been over the dividend period into the recession, the natural flow is less and less effect is not as good as before, but the cost is getting higher and higher.B2B platform is still a lot of merchants can make money, just the proportion of the relatively small.

Maybe you have heard of Taobao only 20% sellers are making money, 50% maintained in the break-even, the rest of the loss of money.B2B platform is the same, only a portion of the head of the enterprise (at least hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to invest) is making money, most of the enterprise is to accompany the running to get along, the remaining part of the long term loss of money state.

The quality of the inquiry is not the same

As mentioned above, the nature and quality of traffic on international and independent websites are different, which leads to different quality and quantity of inquiries. International station traffic should be more accurate, but the result is that often the quality of the inquiry deviation, the overall quality of the inquiry is not as good as the independent station of foreign trade.

On one hand, the barriers to entry for businesses have lowered, with diverse approaches emerging. Bulk purchasing has become rare, while a large number of small B2B clients have risen to prominence—especially as e-commerce continues to chip away at brick-and-mortar stores' market share. Consequently, Alibaba has shifted its focus toward these smaller B2B players, directing traffic from AliExpress to its platform, resulting in a surge of small B2B clients. We frequently receive inquiries for orders of just a few dozen or even a handful of products, while bulk purchase inquiries have dwindled significantly. Moreover, these bulk orders primarily come from Indian clients (you know what I mean).

On the other hand, with too many cooks and not enough broth, Alibaba prioritizes premium traffic for clients willing to spend big.Spending less than 300,000 RMB annually on Alibaba ads yields mediocre results, with profits often failing to cover costs. I've seen many clients investing hundreds of thousands yearly, receiving thousands of monthly inquiries, yet closing only 2-3 standard clients per month and 1-2 larger deals annually. Stores investing 1 million RMB annually on the International Station rarely lack traffic and consistently receive inquiries from major brands.

Regarding the effectiveness of Alibaba International, Xiao Di can't elaborate too much to avoid being misunderstood as hyping up one platform while downplaying another. If you're interested, feel free to search on Douyin, WeChat Video Account, and other platforms—there are plenty of real-life examples. Some claim that inquiries are controlled and allocated by the platform, rather than purely dependent on merchants optimizing their products to achieve better rankings and attract inquiries.

Independent websites generally yield much more reliable inquiry quality, as many serious buyers who prioritize supplier quality often search for suppliers via Google. The section below titled “Independent Websites Better Showcase Professionalism and Build Trust” elaborates on this. Even receiving just a few dozen inquiries per month can keep an independent website owner busy, with several potential clients closing deals. For instance, when Xiao Di managed an independent website for a Shenzhen energy storage battery company, Google ads generated an inquiry from Germany's second-largest importer within less than two months.

Another crucial point is that customers on the international platform are highly price-sensitive and discerning. Since the platform's rules require recommending multiple suppliers for the same customer to choose from, buyers naturally compare offers across vendors and become more selective. Suppliers are thus passively drawn into a price comparison and discounting game.

You send the international station store URL to the customer, the customer will definitely go to your N peer store comparison, and finally choose the lower price or more powerful one to order, you send customers to peers for nothing. Ali's recommendation mechanism is this, no matter which page your customers browse, Ali will recommend your counterparts store to customers.

Even induce customers to send RFQs, as long as the customer clicks a button, you can send inquiries to your many peers. Think about it, the last customer will order you? The independent station does not have this problem, customers can only shop in your site, will not be guided to peer sites.

Standalone sites are better at highlighting professionalism to gain credibility

Foreign customers trust independent websites more because they trust Google. A website can be shown in the first 2 pages of Google, which proves that it has been "recognized" by Google and has high credibility. Compared with the international site inside the merchant ranking and merchant information only through the platform audit, the reliability is not enough.

I've read what British foreigners purchasing on B2B platform: in order to control the price and quality, they will directly find factories to cooperate. Nowadays, there are factories and traders on B2B platform, which is difficult to distinguish. Moreover, the products and information of each company on the platform look similar, and it is difficult to highlight the differentiated selling points due to serious homogenization. It's a bit of a headache to screen from hundreds of suppliers.

So I would choose to search for suppliers on Google search, and if I see a company with a good product design, I would think that this company is more focused on the brand image and customers, because they have “invested” (in the website), and appear more reliable and professional.

Below is a video interview with a British brand importer, explaining the problems of B2B platforms in the eyes of foreign customers and why foreigners prefer to find suppliers through independent sites.

Video from Shakeology blogger @Tommy, take your time.It has been awardedauthorizations.

The nature of the official website of the independent station is supposed to be more reliable than the platform store, and the independent station can freely add the video of the factory, production line process, team introduction, industry certification (such as ISO, CE) and other modules, which visually conveys the professionalism of the enterprise.

And you can also publish industry whitepapers, customer case studies, and technical blogs to establish an authoritative image of the industry. Case: a furniture company through an independent station to show the wood traceability process, European and American customers conversion rate increased by 40%

In contrast, all stores on the international site have exactly the same type of capital page and content layout, and are limited by templates, which only allow them to upload basic graphics and text, and are unable to convey the brand story in depth. Content homogenization is serious, buyers focus on price comparison rather than brand value.

Independent stations can access Trustpilot, SiteJabber and other third-party evaluation systems to display unscreened real user feedback. False positive feedback and single-sheet brushing exist on Ali's international website, and the loopholes in platform regulation have led to a decline in buyer trust.

The independent site clarifies user privacy policy through GDPR compliance statement, data encryption technology, while the data of Ali International Station belongs to the platform, and the enterprise can't manage the buyer's information directly.

Independent site can embed McAfee SECURE, BBB (Better Business Bureau) certification badge, especially for European and American buyers persuasive. Ali prohibits buyers and sellers from contacting each other through WhatsApp and e-mail, so buyers can't verify the authenticity of the company.

Essential Differences:The independent website is the “digital headquarters” of an enterprise, building trust through in-depth content and technical services, while the international website is like an “online bazaar”, where trust relies on the platform rather than the enterprise itself. In the globalized brand competition, independent websites have become the core carrier of the trust economy.

Less restrictive and ownership of stand-alone stations

Full corporate controlfree-standing stationDigital assets, enterprises independently registered domain names (such as brand.com), self-managed servers, website code, database, user information are private assets that can be migrated, backed up or sold.

Customer contact information, behavioral trajectory (browsing/purchase records) and other data belong to the enterprise, which can be used for email marketing, remarketing, and building a private domain traffic pool. Website content, SEO ranking weight and user evaluation are all deposited as long-term brand assets of the enterprise, which are not affected by changes in platform rules.

Ali International Station Restrictions:

1. Merchants only have the right to use but not ownership, domain name, store structure, customer data are attributed to the platform, close the store that is the loss of all resources;
2. Data access is limited, buyer contact information is desensitized by the platform, and companies can only communicate through on-site mail, unable to export a complete customer database;
3. Constrained by platform template design and displayed alongside competitors on the same page, it risks falling into a price comparison trap, preventing the in-depth communication of brand stories;
4. It is prohibited to direct buyers to external tools such as WhatsApp, email, etc., violators will be deducted points or close the store;
5. Product detail pages need to conform to the platform template and cannot be embedded with personalized designs (e.g. brand story videos);
6. Promotions require enrollment in platform events (e.g. "New Trade Festivals"), which are complex and require additional fees;
7. Violations of the cumulative points (such as false advertising deduction of 6 points), the full X points will be restricted from participating in the activities, the full X points can be shut down;
8. Unable to cast Google ads, participate in Google search rankings, etc., off-site attraction effect is poor;

I saw a group of friends in the foreign trade station sharing group share: because the product is similar to the constant complaints, and finally the store was closed, so he taught himself to build an independent station.

If the Ali store is not renewed or blocked, all the previous efforts will be in vain, remember to backup the customer data. Foreign trade website inquiry information and product information in their own hands, you can always download the migration.

Update 2026.04.08: A friend shared that the chemical product store was directly blocked without receiving a warning, and the platform was unwilling to refund the advertisement fee, balance, and opening fee.

Operate differently

International platforms have specific rules and requirements. To achieve optimal results, you must continuously upload products, refresh listings, respond promptly, ensure content compliance, participate in promotions, and more. This necessitates dedicated operations personnel—potentially several individuals for larger operations. It demands significant investment in both manpower and time.

Independent website is much easier to run, there is no requirement. As long as you have time to upload a little bit of products every week, write 1-2 articles every month, share the website page/content to social media, and reply to any inquiries, it's very easy.

Independent station does not need to be operated by a person, find a free point of the salesman has time to manage the line. Of course, if you want good results, it is best to operate according to the international station as a person, publish content, do some external links. It is best to put some ads or do SEO optimization.

plight of the many and the few

Times dividend period has passed, in the information explosion today, a bunch of suppliers take the initiative to find the door, customers casually in Google, AI search can also find a large number of high-quality suppliers, B2B platforms go downhill is inevitable.

With more and more merchants on the one hand, and less and less traffic in terms of quantity and quality on the other, B2B platforms have been caught in the predicament of too much and too little. Things are scarce and expensive, so B2B platforms continue to raise prices, so as to sieve out some of the merchants while maintaining profits.

That's why B2B platforms/international sites like Ali and MIC will become more and more expensive, and merchants will need to spend more money to get sizable inquiries. Di talked to a current account manager of a B2B platform with more than 10 years of experience and he affirmed this statement of mine.

A digression: some platform account managers can run the train, blowing sky-high, giving a large number of unfulfilled promises, such as merchants stationed only to find that it is a big cake.

Advantages of B2B platforms such as Ali

Although the effect is not as good as before, but Ali is after all the number one B2B platform, has some quality sources. Large foreign companies have very large orders and need many suppliers. They like to look for suppliers in the Ali type platform, saving time and efficiency.

However, only the popular keywords ranked on the first page of the business to have more access to these large customers, and the strength of the business itself and product quality, price to be excellent in order to arouse the interest of customers to send inquiries.

Moreover, when opening a store on Alibaba, as long as you're willing to invest, you'll get inquiries regardless of how well you manage operations. As long as your order prices and MOQs aren't too high, you can generally secure sales. Whether you get many or few orders, large or small ones, is another matter entirely—but at least it's stable. Independent websites primarily rely on operations. If managed well, they can generate excellent inquiries at low costs. However, if operations are poor, even investing 100,000 yuan might not guarantee any sales.

Years ago Xiaodi in Guangzhou Baiyun District, a trading company to work (more than 10 foreign trade salesman), the company mainly rely on 2 Alibaba account customer acquisition, an account to invest more than 300,000 / year. From Ali inquiry to do down 3 big customers, a year profit of tens of millions.

Ali and other international platforms have the advantage of being able to do on-site payment, platform guarantee (Ali letter of guarantee commission 2% ~ 3%) some customers are more trustworthy, can contribute to the transaction to a certain extent. However, as long as the impact on the small amount of orders, large orders are almost always go T / T transaction is more stable. Sellers are also not assured that large sums of money through the international station platform collection, there is a risk of being deducted or delayed payment.

Summary:

Pick up the above example, assuming you are a vendor, you will choose the food court or in front of the school, food market entrance, brick and mortar stores and other places to set up stalls / stores? In fact, the answer is very obvious, you go to the food court to see how much foot traffic, high and low rent, more or less peer product competition will know which one to choose.

Go to the food court to see it, your products in the food court to buy more people, profit is considerable then certainly in the food court stall, investing money to attract traffic are worth it. Orders, objective profits, any expenditure is reasonable and acceptable.

However, if the food court is not ideal for your product's target customer traffic, there are already many peers, then there is no need to go in again. It's better to go elsewhere to set up a stall/shop at this point, with low cost and high freedom.

Alibaba suits companies with strong capabilities and a willingness to invest. Opt for the highest-tier package directly, with annual spending of 300,000 to 1,000,000 RMB on the Trade Express service. Dominate search results with primary keywords, and expect substantial inquiry results (effectiveness varies by industry; for reference only). If your company lacks distinct advantages and is unwilling to invest, Alibaba's effectiveness is unlikely to be high. An independent website may be a better fit.

Independent e-commerce platform + international marketplace—a perfect match

Through the comparison above between independent foreign trade websites and international platforms, it should be clear that independent sites and international platforms are not in competition with each other, but rather in a mutually supportive and complementary relationship. Their traffic sources also differ somewhat, and their customer bases are not entirely the same. If conditions permit, it is advisable to operate both. Focus more resources on whichever performs better to increase output.

An independent website is like aged citrus peel—the longer it matures, the better the results. The sooner you start, the better. Xiao Di wrote an article titled "Avoiding Pitfalls in Outsourced Website Development + How to Screen Website Development Companies》Article, feel free to check it out if you're interested.