These stupid questions include but are not limited to:

"Is cross-border e-commerce difficult? Can beginners do it? Is the independent site threshold high? How much should I invest? Can I do it as a side hustle? How long should I invest in a side hustle? Can I do it alone? Is Amazon easy to do? Can Shein still be done? How long until I'm profitable?"

Despite this, I've still created many newcomer-oriented guidance collections:

• 30 Questions Newcomers Must Know for Cross-Border E-commerce Independent Sites in 2024 (Part 3)
• 3 Major Cross-Border E-commerce Independent Site Newcomer Traps Final Part: Sharpen Your Tools First, But You'll Give Up as You Sharpen
• Complete Guide for Cross-Border E-commerce Independent Site Beginners! From 3 Months Without Orders to Weekly 11000R, 10 Steps and 15 Pitfalls Explained Clearly! (Part 2)

Don't be hurt or defensive. I've been a newcomer myself, I've asked all these stupid questions and stepped into all these pits. At the same time, I run self-media and communities, so I've seen all kinds of newcomers.

Today I'm trying to share real cases from various group members and my own experiences, to help newcomers concretize questions like the 'Little Horse Crosses the River' and cross-border e-commerce thresholds, breaking through information cocoons.

Who is the Questioner?

When newcomers ask "Is cross-border e-commerce difficult? Is the threshold high?" this stupid question is stupid in two ways:

1. What is the questioner's actual level, resources, and capability background?
2. What kind of threshold is the questioner talking about? In other words, how much investment counts as the threshold in their mouth?

I'll give three extreme examples:

• Questioner A might be someone who didn't finish elementary school and can't afford to eat every month, yet still asks in the group "Is the cross-border e-commerce threshold high?"
• Questioner B might be a wealthy, capable overseas returnee, struggling to survive in a big tech company or just laid off, envious of online get-rich-quick stories, and they also ask online "Is cross-border e-commerce as a side hustle difficult?"
• Questioner C might be an experienced serial entrepreneur with rich domestic e-commerce retail experience, even having led operations for mature domestic brands, and they ask me: "Is there still a chance in cross-border e-commerce now?"

So smart audience, you tell me, how should I answer them? If it were you, how would you answer?

For Questioner A type, saying they didn't finish elementary school and can't afford to eat is an exaggeration, but based on my observation, actually more than 50% have similar "poor" backgrounds and qualifications. And within this group, there are two branches:

• A1 Type, mainly characterized by poor qualifications, laziness, and greed, almost belonging to the type who are unsuccessful in everything in life and fail at whatever they do. When they see cross-border e-commerce can make them rich online, they rush over like headless flies, with no capability to invest, no funds to invest, do nothing but want to change their destiny against all odds. I know this might sound "negative", but for these people, I have to say, please stop dreaming, cross-border e-commerce has a very high threshold, I advise you to quit.

• A2 Type, although they don't have so-called capabilities or resources, these people often have more drive, and don't carry heavy burdens like "academic", "formal training", or "background". Most of them don't care about anything, no bottom line, no rules, whatever makes money and gets results is how they do it. Cross-border e-commerce, this kind of business that can operate on the edge of xx, is simply their main battlefield. So if you observe old-timers in traditional foreign trade, you'll find most are such "grassroots origins", yet they make a fortune. For these people, cross-border e-commerce does have a threshold, but believe me, as long as you master certain basic methods, your freedom and desire for money will enable you to easily achieve very, very good results in the mid to late stages. Not exaggerating, it's almost better than any domestic industry you can currently access without a threshold and on your own.

Weekly 10k+ | Transitioning to Cross-Border E-commerce Independent Site Individual Seller, the More "Formally Trained" You Are, the Harder You Get Beaten W09

A can even derive more types of characters, A3, A4; B and C are even more so, I won't expand further.

By now you've discovered that the entire internet, the entire cross-border e-commerce industry, even my community, is full of all kinds of people. They don't understand each other, so no answer is universally the same.

Person C invests real money and resources, develops and polishes products, heavily invests in branding and operations, barely breaks even after a year. Then they see A2 copying hot products, selling high replicas, not shipping, selling on platforms, and even one day getting copied themselves, ultimately making more money than them. Of course, C will angrily denounce that this industry's threshold is too low.

Meanwhile, A1 and side-hustle B, invest 300 yuan, work for 10 days without making money, and also complain this industry is so difficult.

Newcomers' Abstract High Thresholds

Maybe the above content is still too vague and general! Too much correct nonsense. This leads to a certain type of person, in their own information cocoon, not believing such things, people, and concepts exist.

Come on, let me directly show you similar questions I've encountered. These are real questions from group members and questions I myself have asked. Judge for yourself how abstract they can be. (I won't post screenshots, almost 90% of newcomers have such questions, including me.)

A: How does everyone restock? On 1688 I must purchase at least 2 pieces, can I only buy 1 piece?

B: Original player, developing molds, prototyping, debugging, 3 months passed, tens of thousands invested.

A: How do I do dropshipping? I don't want to stock inventory, don't want to stock even one piece, this way I won't lose money.

B: First batch of 500 pieces, found an overseas warehouse, opened independent site and multi-channel platforms.

Three Product Categories New Individual Sellers Should Never Touch (DropShipping)

A: Is there any latest, complete, useful 0-1 cross-border e-commerce tutorial? Can't access foreign sites, don't want to read domestic ones, think they're all bad, can't understand them.

B: Organized all domestic and foreign tutorials myself, chose what suits me and started doing it directly.

A: This CPC is too high!! $1.5 per click! Cross-border e-commerce is really inhuman. Oh, you're asking how much I invested? I just invested for one day, invested $2.

A: Don't touch SEO! It's useless! I've researched for over a month with no effect! Oh, you're asking what I did? I spend 1 minute every week letting AI quickly generate a Blog post, then spend 30 seconds publishing it, published over 20 posts; but I spent over a month looking for guides and tools, oh I'm very tired and working hard.

These are the various abstract thresholds newcomers mention. Is the threshold high? I don't know how to answer. Because for A1 type people, anything counts as very high, they'd find breathing tiring.

You're a little horse, you ask a big horse, is the water deep for cross-border e-commerce? The big horse says it's okay, just work hard (actually they invested 100k+ and lots of effort and manpower, but in their cognition they think this is just normal business investment), who would have thought you'd drown as soon as you entered.

You're a big horse, you ask a little horse, is the water deep for cross-border e-commerce? The little horse says, don't come, don't come! It's too difficult! (Actually he doesn't spend a penny, fishes for three days and rests for two days in a month), the big horse, holding resource advantages and capabilities, believes the little horse and regretfully gives up.

Even People Like xx Can Make Money, What Reason Do You Have for Not Making Money?

Switching back to positive energy chicken soup perspective, let's put aside A1 type hopeless mud, I believe most of my audience are those who seriously think and really work hard in practice.

You've seen my "strength" and results in the weekly reports over this past year plus. After persisting this long, group members who know my site even angrily "complain": this must be stepping in dog shit luck to sell, right? The energy I actually devote to independent site business weekly is very, very limited, yet I can maintain monthly income over 10k.

And there are countless real group member cases around me who've achieved even better results, they don't have any special background or resources either.

You just need to stay in a newcomer group for a few days, and you'll see some practical newcomer players sending good news "Made a sale!"

So, even people like us can get results and make money. You tell me, where exactly is this threshold high?

I think it's only high on the nonexistent hurdle you've set for yourself.

SchrödingersThreshold # SchrödingersInvestment # SchrödingersAdSpend # SchrödingersCrossBorderEcommerceDifficulty