Start doing online business using B2B Portals in Six Steps
By Nowshade Kabir
Posted Wednesday, September 15, 2004
I registered with a B2B site but what’s next?
This is a question many first time users of B2B marketplaces ask themselves. A few expect that the registration itself will bring them a number of new customers. In some cases this might by true! Especially, if you are a seller of some much coveted items. But for rest of us, things are a little trickier! A large B2B marketplace has a lot of suppliers of similar products, who are vying for the attention of potential customers. To establish your company as a favored one among them is not an easy task! However, a little planning and thorough follow up of some basic guidelines improve your chance of getting noticed by buyers significantly.
Below, I outlined some of the basic steps that you should take once you seriously decide to market your products using B2B marketplaces.
1 Write a nice profile
When a prospective client sees your trade lead ad or your product on the marketplace and feels interested, the first thing he does is - checks your company profile out. That’s where the buyer gets his initial information about your company. If you have a virtually blank profile with a very little information on your company, doubtful that the potential client will even bother to make a request for quote. That’s why you should spend a little time on writing a nice company profile. Here are some aspects that you should emphasize on while writing your company profile.
Start your profile with something noteworthy about your company. This could be the distinct quality that sets your business apart from your competition.
Describe your present customer base, target market and any new products or projects that you are planning to come up with.
Write a bit about your company history. When the company was incorporated? What is the business form?
If you have something to boast about, do it! If you feel that your sales figures are impressive, why not mention them.
Be brief! The profile should not be more than five paragraphs. You don’t want your buyers to get bored!
2 Include your logo on your Storefront page
If you would like to separate your company from many other similar vendors, you have to think seriously about creating a brand for your company. Brand is the distinctive pattern of your business operation. It portrays the nature of your service or product, your uniqueness in comparison to others etc. A nice looking logo is a key to branding your company. Customers will remember your company name better if you have a great logo to go with.
3 Add products to your storefront
It is important to have your main products, products that are your primary sale generators, added to your storefront. Products with nice picture and well descriptions capture buyers attention more than any thing else. After all the reason that the buyers are on your page is to look for the products that they need.
New Great Storefront Services
Whether you are a small enterprise, which sells goods and services locally, or you are a medium to large company with global reach, Rusbiz is planning to introduce great storefront services with complete corporate site to match your every business need. Features include:
Basic
Single page storefront
10 products in E-catalog
Sales through e-marketplace
RFQ and Quotation
Negotiations
Internal Messaging Service
Many other features
Available now and it's free!
Enterprise
10 different templates to build multiple-page storefront
100 products in E-catalog
Sales through e-marketplace
RFQ and Quotation
Negotiations
Purchase Orders
Invoices
Tax Calculation
Shipment tracking
Internal Messaging Service
Merchant Account
Many other features
Coming soon!
Corporate
10 different templates to build multiple-page storefront
1000 products in E-catalog
Sales through e-marketplace
RFQ and Quotation
Negotiation
Purchase Orders
Invoices
Tax Calculation
Shipment tracking
Internal Messaging Service
Merchant Account
Many other features
Coming soon!
4 Make nice pictures of your products
Nothing can turn off a prospective buyer than a hazy or blur picture of the product that he intends to buy from you. If your competitor’s product with exactly same features has nicer picture, guess who has a better chance to get the business? Spend some money and take professional pictures of your products. Make sure that you followed all the instructions of the Portal before uploading the pictures.
5 Post your products for sale on the marketplace
Product visibility is the name of the game! Don’t confine yourself just by adding products to E-catalog and your Storefront. Post products for sale on the E-marketplace.
There are numbers of great advantages of posting products on E-marketplaces:
Frequent browsers of marketplace can see your products
Buyers can compare your products with others on marketplace
Buyers can take an immediate buying decision and make an instant Purchase Order.
6 Post trade leads
For many not-so-savvy users of B2B sites it's a bit complicated to make buys and sales through marketplaces. They prefer to get trade leads from the site and make contacts with buyers or sellers by fax, phone or just emails. Posting trade leads is a great marketing method to tap new territories. Don’t be disappointed if you do not get immediate feedbacks. Repeat trade leads at least once in a month. Since normally a portal constantly acquires new members, in order to expose the leads to bigger audience, it is worthwhile to post trade leads frequently.
About The Author
Nowshade Kabir, Ph.D., is the founder, primary developer and present CEO, of Rusbiz.com, a global business to business e-commerce portal with feature like storefronts, aggregated catalog, e-marketplace, trade leads, internal messaging system supply chain solutions, etc. With a doctorate in Information Technology, Dr. Kabir has worked an advisor to government projects and has over 12 years experience in International Trade. An author of many B2B and business related articles; he publishes a bi-weekly E-zine for online business community. You can subscribe to his newsletter free of charge from (http://www.rusbiz.com/).
nowshade@rusbiz.com
