The Amazon account suspension has brought another big explosion to independent websites, and in the process, some website building platforms have attracted the attention of capital,At the end of 2021, FunPinPin, an independent station building SaaS service platform established in 2020, announced the acquisition of a million dollar A-round financing led by Innovation Works.
Independent station construction platformFunPinPinComplete tens of millions of dollarsRound A financing
On December 28th, China's independent station building SaaS service platform FunPinPin announced the acquisition of a million dollar A-round financing led by Innovation Works, which will mainly be used for product research and development and market expansion, with a focus on empowering DTC sellers and Amazon boutique sellers. This round of financing will be advised by World Capital.
FunPinPin, founded in 2020, is an independent website building service platform with marketing genes for Chinese furniture. It can provide one-stop solutions for Chinese merchants from website building to marketing. Currently, FunPinPin has successfully served over a thousand cross-border e-commerce customers,Including women's anti-aging brandsMISSPEP, high-end personal care brand JOVS, and global consumer grade AR glasses leading brand Nreal are selling well.
Since 2020, the epidemic has catalyzed the rapid development of global e-commerce, with a large number of Chinese sellers relying on efficient supply chain advantages to start cross-border e-commerce business. Unlike the market form dominated by various domestic e-commerce platforms, overseas platforms have a lower market share in e-commerce, and users are more accustomed to shopping on exclusive e-commerce websites. Currently, Shopify has surpassed established e-commerce platforms such as eBay and Walmart to become the second largest e-commerce platform in the United States after Amazon with an 8.6% market share. Shopify, which has millions of merchants, set a historical record of nearly $3.1 million in sales per minute for sellers on Black Friday this year.
Focus on building independent overseas stationsIn the SaaS market, in addition to mainstream Shopify, there are also a large number of merchants using open-source or previous generation website building tools such as WooCommerce, WordPress, Magento, etc. According to WooCommerce data, only 26% of global online stores established Shopify websites in 2021. The ResearchAndMarkets report shows that the global SaaS market size is expected to grow from $225.6 billion in 2020 to $272.49 billion in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 20.8% and reaching $436.9 billion by 2025. The independent SaaS market has enormous growth potential, and FunPinPin, a team with a global perspective, is one of the most powerful competitors on this track.
Innovation Factory Investment Director Ruan Fei believes that:FunPinPin takes the establishment of independent websites as the starting point, and quickly occupies the market by combining the core demand points of building websites and attracting two independent website sellers. It has become a leading website service platform in the market. We believe that in the future, FunPinPin can expand more imaginative products based on existing cross-border seller and overseas user data. Innovation Works is very optimistic about the ability and execution ability of the FunPinPin team, and is also optimistic about this track. In the future, there will be The opportunity to create companies worth over ten billion dollars
Zhou Shuang, Chief Strategic Officer of FunPinPin, stated: The founding team of FunPinPin is inherently multicultural and has a global perspective, with inherent traffic genes. Most of the members of the team are continuous entrepreneurs with rich successful experience in entrepreneurship and capital operation. At the same time, we also have a strong product research and development team, which can not only achieve technical solutions that are not inferior to international competitors, but also combine our team's understanding of traffic and China's supply chain to develop winning products.We hope that excellent investors like Innovation Works can join us in exploring the Chinese e-commerce market together.”
Local independent website building tools in China better understand Chinese brands
1、 The only way for Chinese brands to go global: Choose a website building tool that better understands Chinese sellers
The epidemic has brought many impacts to the global economy, but it has also stimulated the rapid development of the e-commerce retail industry, especially in the post epidemic era when foreign production economies are almost stagnant. As a world factory, China has become the largest e-commerce product in the worldSupplier.
According to customs statistics,In the first 11 months of 2021, China's total import and export value was 35.39 trillion yuan, of which 19.58 trillion yuan was exported, a year-on-year increase of 21.8%. In November alone, China's total export value reached 2.09 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.6%.
Against the backdrop of a positive overall industry situation, the arrival of Amazon's account suspension wave has left many businesses with no choice but to complain. However, the upgrading of overseas consumption has led to a greater focus on personalized consumer needs and the provision of unique productsThe continuous rise of DTC brands, represented by SHEIN, PatPatPat, and other independent websites in China, has been highly sought after, giving the cross-border e-commerce industry greater imagination space.
The Amazon account suspension incident has made many cross-border e-commerce merchants realize that relying on a single platform can bring many risks, and balancing platform and independent station multi-channel layout will be an important strategic means for future cross-border e-commerce to reduce risks and create a global brand image. However, Chinese merchants are gradually discovering that overseas websites they have collaborated with in the pastThe SaaS platform lacks local service capabilities in China, making it difficult to quickly and effectively solve some of the problems that arise during operation.
Zhou Shuang, Chief Strategic Officer of FunPinPin, stated: It is difficult for overseas website platforms to meet the specific needs of Chinese merchants. As an independent SaaS platform for website construction in China, FunPinPin not only understands the operating rules of overseas traffic but also the real needs of Chinese sellers. At the same time, we have strong global operation and localization capabilities. Now, we also have strong support from capital. Such FunPinPin will definitely provide protection for Chinese sellers on the necessary path of cross-border shipping.
In the process of transforming into an independent website, Peptide Micro Technology, a brand of biological health care products on the Amazon platform, chose to collaborate withFunPinPin cooperation. Liao Liang, CEO of Peptide Micro Technology, said, "After multiple exchanges with FunPinPin, we gradually gained a new understanding of independent website construction and brand building. Finally, we chose FunPinPin. The excellent advertising team not only saved our team's construction costs and time, but also effectively improved the efficiency of our website construction and advertising placement
2、 Tailored for Chinese sellers,FunPinPin creates a complete closed-loop service of "station building+drainage"
Facing the core pain points of Chinese sellers in website construction, marketing, ecological resources, data security, and localized operation support,FunPinPin has created a full link website building service platform that is more suitable for Chinese sellers, helping them to more efficiently carry out global layout.
In terms of station construction,FunPinPin helps merchants quickly solve their urgent needs in the early stages of website establishment through specialized products, such as 3-minute rapid website establishment, website instant opening, one click import of multi-platform product information, meeting various settlement processes in different overseas markets, and through rich combination marketing functions, helping sellers easily increase their unit price per customer. For boutique websites, FunPinPin also provides POD category exclusive plugins, exquisite templates that meet various vertical categories, and exclusive membership systems to help vertical and brand customers layout and precipitate private domain traffic, and provides full platform traffic layout functions such as online alliance SEO.
In terms of marketing and customer acquisition,FunPinPin is well aware that traffic is the key password for independent stations. Therefore, unlike other website building SaaS tools, FunPinPin combines overseas marketing services with website building services as its core, empowering high-quality merchants worldwide with rich marketing experience,Provided includes website buildingFacebook/Google/TikTok's integrated "independent website construction+drainage" closed-loop service includes advertising account opening, advertising optimization, and advertising credit limit services,Assist merchants in solving the core issues from website establishment to drainage.
In terms of ecological resources,FunPinPin connects merchants with top traffic providers such as Google, Facebook, and TikTok, helping them obtain resource support from traffic providers, enjoy VIP level advertising and marketing services, effectively ensure the stability of advertising accounts, apply for direct account manager support, obtain advertising quotas, and help merchants avoid advertising policy minefields. In addition, FunPinPin is actively expanding its deep cooperation with payment tools such as PayPal to provide effective payment solutions for merchants.
More noteworthy is that,In the first quarter of 2022, FunPinPin will launch its independently developed FunPinPin application market, thus becoming theThe first website building platform in China with an application market.FunPinPin will connect global developers through standardized API interfaces, allowing more mature plugins in the Shopify application market and other ecosystems to seamlessly access the FunPinPin platform. At the same time, in order to meet the localization needs of merchants, FunPinPin will also provide secondary development services for merchants.
FunPinPin's Chief Operating Officer Zhong Yang said, "The FunPinPin application market is also a global open technology exchange platform, where everyone can showcase their technical development talents. We welcome outstanding global developers to create a win-win situation with FunPinPin here
In terms of seller data security,FunPinPin provides triple security measures for merchant data encryption:
Firstly,FunPinPin's products have a rigorous data architecture plan, ensuring the integrity, security, and mutual independence of merchant backend data from the bottom of the system. During the cooperation period, merchants can independently manage all their backend data, including customer, product, order data, etc., and permanently support full data export or migration.
Secondly,FunPinPin will start establishing a 10 million level data security fund to provide protection for independent website merchants who are concerned about data security breaches. If there is a leakage of merchant data, effective compensation can be obtained.
Thirdly,The FunPinPin risk control team focuses on the independence of the merchant's brand. Once we discover that our merchant has been infringed by other merchants within the system, we will immediately close the infringing merchant site upon confirmation.
In addition, in order to better provide merchants with comprehensive localized services,FunPinPin provides comprehensive technical, operational, and marketing support to merchants through the independent station "Iron Triangle" team service model of "production research+sales+AM", and does not refuse any small demand.
A high-end personal care brand focused on solving the problem of medical beauty and home careTaking JOVS as an example, after its entry into the global personal care market with explosive hair removal devices and initial achievement of overseas plans from countries such as Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea, the German market has become JOVS' next important strategic goal. JOVS co founder Alice said, "JOVS is very rigorous in selecting partners. We conducted a series of inspections on FunPinPin's product flow and integrated service solutions, and found that their rich overseas experience can help us improve the efficiency of our brand's overseas travel. Finally, we chose FunPinPin as one of the important partners in the German market overseas plan.
3、 Empowering Amazon Boutique andDTC Seller, FunPinPin Launches Universal Plan 2.0 to Assist Brand Transformation
Currently,FunPinPin launched the Universal Plan 2.0 with a heavy emphasis on supporting DTC and Amazon boutique sellers.
Firstly,FunPinPin will build a website for merchants for free, freeing up their operational manpower, enabling easy store transfer, and helping merchants with store decoration.
On the marketing side that businesses are concerned about,FunPinPin will assist merchants in jointly applying for stable Google GMC/Facebook accounts from Google and Facebook, and provide merchants with a $100000 advertising credit line, which can be spent first and paid later, easily solving the pressure of marketing expenses and financial turnover. Moreover, FunPinPin will also provide customers with a free week of global precision e-commerce alliance traffic, continuously promoting independent stations to attract customers.
In response to the current shortage of cross-border e-commerce operators,FunPinPin has launched a free 30 day advertising placement training camp to train business operators on practical issues such as precise advertising placement on Google and Facebook.
Innovation Market Investment Director Nguyen Tan pointed out that more and more vertical, boutique, and R&D oriented sellers are starting to engage in cross-border e-commerce. Many domestic brands with already excellent products are also trying to find new growth points overseas. The overall average quality of cross-border e-commerce products has improved significantly compared to last year.
In the future, independent websites will play an increasingly important role in the cross-border e-commerce industry, becoming one of the important means for cross-border merchants to break free from platform constraints, occupy user minds, and establish global brands.
FunPinPin has always been committed to becoming a "more suitable website building service platform for Chinese sellers" and continuously upgrading to an independent ecological service platform, achieving full link empowerment for cross-border sellers. After obtaining the A-round financing, FunPinPin will continue to improve its product research and development capabilities, invest more funds to help the Chinese DTC brand smoothly go global, help Amazon boutique sellers transform, and help Chinese brands break the stereotype of "low quality and low price", truly moving towards a new stage of brand globalization.