Four Darkest Moments in Global E-commerce Entrepreneurship: Endless Bans and Continuous Losses (Part 1)

Preface

In the early stages, I was more eager than group friends to see this type of content. Because I've always been particularly resistant to various "success stories" on social media—I actually want to know where the real pitfalls are.

But similar content is really rare. Either it's showing off big orders to harvest you, or it's disguised as "pitfall avoidance" but still harvesting you.

And looking at those grandiose success stories behind the scenes, those successful people sitting opposite bloggers in interviews will never share those "dirty" industry secrets and winning strategies with you. It's always a bunch of grandiose, correct nonsense that sounds profound but is useless when you actually try to apply it.

Not to mention others, isn't Donkey Sister the same? Look at the chicken soup she occasionally shares—isn't it all nonsense? Telling you to persist, to do something sustainable. Would she tell you about the dirty deeds behind successful global e-commerce independent sites?

She occasionally mentions it, but then some readers complain it's too negative. I really sometimes fall into self-contradiction: telling negative truths makes people feel depressed and lose confidence, telling empty motivational words makes people feel worthless, and short practical干货 gets no traffic.

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This Episode's Content

In this episode, I'll talk about the darkest moments I've experienced as a real global e-commerce solopreneur, or a small lone wolf entrepreneur, and how I dealt with them.

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1. Bans, Endless Bans

In all my newbie guides and motivational content, I've mentioned the threshold of bans countless times. I mean all channels, all platforms, all links in the chain—everything.

No Pictures, No Truth

Here are my chat records with my wife and my Gmail sent records:

Bans I've experienced:

• FB registration instantly banned
• GMC false statement ban
• Google Ads account banned for various reasons
• Facebook ad account banned
• TK account banned
• Meta shop banned
• Paypal UK first account permanently banned for 180 days
• Reddit banned
• Pinterest merchant certification failed

And so on, I've experienced all of these.

I still haven't withdrawn the money from my UK PP account (partly because I'm too lazy, partly because I'm afraid of environment association).

Only those who have actually done it can truly understand the endless despair and helplessness that each small item brings. No reason, no specific solution. Just despair.

How to Deal With It?

1. Maximize legal compliance, whether in actual business or external presentation.

2. Absolutely controllable scientific environment. Can't elaborate. But those using airport services costing a dozen yuan per month—either learn to build your own or give up.

3. Submit appeals according to official guidelines. (The only solution after being banned)

4. Search various channels to try to find solutions.

5. Post for help in various official or unofficial communities, real player communities (like Donkey Sister's group).

Common Newbie Questions

Q: What you said is too general. Can you make specific tutorials for each channel on how to unban and prevent bans?

A: No.

1. Being banned is a black box mystery for all platforms and channels. I don't want to mislead people.
2. Even if I had this ability, I know the value is huge—rest assured, I would find a way to monetize it. Please don't always think about getting things for free.

Q: Okay, I can pay you. Can you help me unban xxx, activate xxx?

A: Not in the short term, but in the medium to long term, I don't know. Same principle—if I'm not absolutely confident, I don't want to mislead and waste users' time.

What If It Really Can't Be Solved?

Take my UK PP permanent ban as an example. After calling official support, writing to them, and asking the community without resolution:

1. Accept reality calmly and look for alternative solutions: For example, I started using China region PP.

2. Don't listen to hearsay. When there's no way out, try all possibilities—after all, there's no worse outcome:

I've heard many netizens say don't think about registering a second PP. Even when I called PP official support to appeal, they advised me the same, saying if you register another one, it will be banned too.

The fact is, because China region PP fees are too high, I thought—there's no worse possibility, what do I have to lose by trying? So I used new credentials and a new environment to create a second UK PP account. Fortunately, it's still alive today.

3. Beware of being harvested:

Service sellers are too good at creating anxiety and selling points, and they pick "thin ropes" to cut—like us people at the end of our rope. Online there are plenty of unscrupulous service providers: PP unbanning, PP withdrawal help, GMC unbanning, etc.

They create fake personas, fake cases, create anxiety, and charge extremely high fees—doing everything possible. All to harvest desperate people one last time.

I don't want to diss all related service providers—after all, where there's an information gap, you can sell shovels.

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Chicken Soup 1: You're Not Alone

You and I are not isolated cases. In all my communities, chat records about "being banned" exceed hundreds.

Smart readers should realize that for newbies, this will be a difficult threshold to overcome. And for smart, hardworking people, they love it—because it helps them build barriers and filter out countless newbie rookies from competing, keeping them outside the wall.

This is why I keep emphasizing that cross-border e-commerce isn't competitive! Don't look at how noisy the online discussions are—it's all sound and fury. You think in my 8 groups with 4000+ members, everyone is actually doing cross-border e-commerce?

Haha, let me tell you, among so many group members:

• 80% are pure rookies watching from the sidelines, cloud players who talk but don't act.
• 15% are service seller peers and workers lurking and waiting for opportunities.
• Only 5% are real practitioners struggling forward, and among this 5%, many will quit after a few months of losing money.

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Chicken Soup 2: Why Are We Targeted Like This?

How many serious global e-commerce independent site solopreneurs have smashed a few mice, keyboards, or even computer desks?

Because of that helpless despair—we clearly didn't do anything wrong, we just want to do legitimate business openly and honestly, why are we targeted like this?

The current state of the cross-border e-commerce industry—there's almost no "bad money drives out good" because it's all bad money. Bad money can make a fortune, so why put in effort and money to be good money?

Fake goods, non-delivery, copy-paste plagiarism, high imitation, wrong products, black Friday, prohibited items, infringing items, black card fraud, money laundering arbitrage—all kinds of methods you can and can't imagine.

So tell me, if you were various channel and platform operators, wouldn't you want to control these bad actors? What's the easiest and most cost-effective way to manage?

Of course, it's one-size-fits-all. Whenever they encounter "our type of group," ban first and ask questions later. As they say, predecessors cut down trees, successors suffer.

And even for正规军, industry talent capabilities are uneven, because too many people got results from bad money business before slowly transforming and self-reforming.

And are we good money ourselves? I don't really think so. I'm just someone who follows rules among the bad money. So I don't want to stand on moral high ground to criticize bad money. Instead, I want to share this bowl of chicken soup with everyone:

The more chaotic the industry, the greater the market opportunity.

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2. No Orders, Losses

This is the second darkest moment that all newbies, including me, face. After getting through the countless ban hurdles, learning to build sites, operate, and advertise, we find—hahaha, no orders. Laughable. So much effort, useless.

Or, you get one order, sell for $20, then look at ad spend—hehe, spent $200.

"Cross-border e-commerce independent site solopreneur, 0 orders in first 3 months, middle-aged straight male loser" is my bio across multiple platforms, summarizing in one sentence what I do and what kind of loser I am.

Partly self-mockery and self-relief; partly, frankly speaking for功利 purposes, I'm filtering my audience. I know how harvesters use false, exaggerated personas to filter naive newbies. So I use a real persona in reverse to filter smart people.

I won't compete with you harvesters and scammers to坑 naive people. I'll try to do business with smart people, okay?

And after getting my first orders in three months, I didn't smoothly make a fortune all the way. On the contrary, frequent losses until around the ninth month when things overall improved (around November last year).

I've talked about the hardships of this period more than once. You can go back and check:

• Perhaps the Most Powerful Chicken Soup for Solopreneurs
• $10K+ Week | One Year Since My First Order: 5000 Words of Honest Sharing

How to Deal With No Orders and Losses?

I think a chat record from yesterday perfectly answers this.

This group friend knows my site, so occasionally goes to "learn and observe," but can't understand:

"Feels like pure luck. I analyzed similar sites for a long time, didn't see any highlights. Including Google ads that seemed mediocre... But they just get orders and make money... 20+ products for over a year without expanding.."

Adjust Your Mindset

I've always felt this is the most basic and obvious truth?

You don't really think there's an industry where "newbies with no threshold or investment can do it, easily making millions in passive income while sleeping?"

You don't really think those side hustle money-making partners on Zhihu and Xiaohongshu are real, right?

Adjust your mindset. Treat cross-border e-commerce as a long-term, sustainable entrepreneurship. Be patient to learn, patient to do bit by bit.

I've published over a hundred free tutorials. Free tutorials are everywhere online. Tell me, what is it that you couldn't possibly learn?

Even Losers Can Make Money, So Only Persistence and Methods Remain

But as the group friend said, "I really can't see any highlights!"

Perfectly echoing what I mentioned in my bi-weekly report: "Even losers like us can make money. You tell me cross-border e-commerce is competitive?"

Not pretending anymore. I'm a loser, I admit it. Take my results and compare with anyone who's persisted in cross-border for over a year—is it really mediocre?

It really is mediocre. So you can't use excuses like "they're amazing, they're professional so they can do it, I'm a newbie who doesn't understand, I can't learn so I can't do it."

So only persistence and correct methods remain.

And for almost all aspects of methodology and认知, I've shared sincerely. I'm mediocre and can't teach you to get rich quick, but at least I can share how to steadily take one step at a time, right?

Persistence Doesn't Mean "Persisting to Make Money"

Persistence means persisting through losses.

Some people see me often mention persistence and long-termism, thinking it's empty talk that anyone can do. But when it comes to themselves, they give up after a week without orders; give up after spending $100 in a month without orders; give up after 3 months of not breaking even.

So where exactly is the persistence? Is it persisting in giving up immediately when not making money?

Losses are normal, everyone. What entrepreneurship project lets you make money immediately upon entry, easily make big money, without any losses or risks? Where is it?

Persistence Doesn't Mean Unchanging

Especially for us mediocre newbies. In the process of practice and learning, we may find our thinking or direction is problematic. Timely correction, but still persist in practicing and trying.

What If You Really Can't Overcome No Orders/Losses?

In Terms of Choice, Cross-border E-commerce Isn't a Completely Low-Threshold Way to Make a Living

If you're financially strained, I suggest you don't easily go all-in on entrepreneurship or cross-border e-commerce.

I've been anxious and lost money, but I won't starve.

In the short term, try exercise/various hobbies to relieve anxiety.

In the long term, in practice, you'll discover countless market needs and opportunities. Switch in time.

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Next Episode Preview

Next episode, let's talk beyond business—about the darkest anxious moments in life before and during entrepreneurship:

1. Before Entrepreneurship: After being laid off, carefree and indifferent, then resumes sinking without trace, interviews all failing, getting heavily harvested in web3, suddenly feeling something's wrong and stumbling into cross-border e-commerce. Avalanche.

2. During Entrepreneurship: Independent site not making money, content creation not monetizing, stocks and funds led by China Europe Medical deeply buried, forced to cut losses facing credit card bills (which in retrospect became timely止损, as China Europe Medical single fund is down 65%+ to date), to the point where I started trying to update my resume and look for jobs again. Major avalanche.

Is this miserable enough? Enough to give everyone a bottom line and encouragement? Is this sad story enough for everyone to laugh at?