Wake Up Call for New Global Sellers! The Real Full-Chain Cost Truth About Product Selection (That Only Those Who've Done It Will Tell You)

Today someone in our group was discussing product selection, and a community member shared their planned product category and average order value. This gave me the idea to share my insights based on this case study.

I have plenty of previous content on product category recommendations:

Of course, approaching from a cost-profit perspective instead of product categories can also help with product selection thinking. It's just that for newcomers, since you haven't run through the entire process, you have no concept of cost structure and conversion data.

Sure, you might have heard from social media or "experts" about things like choosing high AOV products or products with repeat purchase potential. But why exactly? Is it achievable? Experts might not tell you, or even if they do, you might only half understand.

So today I'll try to break this down carefully, using real case data and paths to help everyone understand this reality step by step.

Cost Structure

Let's first set aside various fixed infrastructure costs, including but not limited to: website building service fees (like Shopify annual fees or WP hosting fees, plus various plugin fees), domain name costs, company registration costs, etc. After all, these are one-time investments you can reuse for a long time.

Let's talk directly from a product perspective—the cost structure from procurement to sale to shipping—is roughly this ratio (for reference only, varies by category and approach, actual prevails):

Let's Do a Real Example

Let's get more specific. I'll use an example that a typical new solo seller would encounter on 1688—let's take a red-ocean category product:

Pet Harness Case

A fairly distinctive pet harness. (For some new solo sellers)

Traffic Cost Calculation

Now let's calculate the big one—traffic costs, using Google Ads as an example:

Dog Harness US, search ads CPC ranges from £0.3 at the low end to as high as £1.98 (which shows how competitive this category is). Standard shopping ads or PMax might be lower overall—let's take an average of £0.3 per click, which is about ¥5. Not unreasonable, right?

Okay, if the above is just information anyone can look up, and you think it's not very valuable. Then what I'm about to share are harsh truths that only people who've actually done global selling will tell you:

The Truth About Conversion Rate

I pulled my store's conversion rate for the past week at random—1.54%, which is below industry average. But from what I've observed, this figure for normal sellers ranges between 0.5%-4%.

Let's say you're a pro with an amazing store and highly targeted traffic. You start with a 5% conversion rate—wouldn't that make you excited?

So let's calculate the traffic cost:

• CPC mentioned above: ¥5 per click
• 100 clicks = ¥500
• 5% conversion rate = 5 conversions
• Average cost per conversion = ¥100

I won't even calculate miscellaneous fees for you.

The Total Bill

When you sell this pet harness, your total costs might be:

Well? Still think global selling is for you?

You Can't Do Free Traffic

Seriously, on social media, anyone who tells newcomers that free traffic is great and posts fake screenshots—block them all immediately.

Where does free traffic come from for newcomers? Why would it come to you? Because you're special? Those big players who've been doing global selling for years—what do you think they eat? Go check their ad spend.

Or think about it—what do Google Ads and Meta Ads—these giant platforms—make their living from? Isn't most of their revenue from customers' advertising and marketing costs?

And then you say you can get free traffic, and it's great. So they should all just quit. After all, a newcomer like you can get free traffic and conversions just fine, so everyone should come get free traffic.

Use your brain—is this logic something an adult would come up with?

Low AOV is a Death Sentence

You can enrich your product matrix to cover various customer groups' spending needs. However, if all your products or your flagship product's AOV is locked under ¥300, you might have a hard time playing this game.

Product Selection Recommendations

Your first product must meet these conditions:

Final Thoughts

Product selection is the first step to independent site success, and it's also the easiest place to make mistakes. I hope this article helps newcomers build the right cost awareness and avoid blindly jumping in.

Good luck with product selection, and may your store blow up!

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