B2B platforms in China (Part 1)

Do business in theínea with the Chinese may seem like a great opportunity. And it is, in the majoríto of the cases the businesses in línea they are smart, profitable and fáCila: you save a lotóno money, that would otherwise be spentían in avi ticketsón, negotiations or on-site verifications, so that, when ordering simple goods, mass produced, ¿whyé get annoyed? Obviously there are some risks, but some may say that if our potential partner has a state of “gold supplier”, ¿what caníto go wrong? Well, many things: since it is not so fáeasy as buying a book on amazon.

Hereí We present the answers to the questionsáCommon questions related to China's B2B platforms. Sayúin our experience, people who are new to importingón China often make similar mistakes, that result from the mistakeón howún: they are naive and take the things written on itínea, literally.

 

¿Whaté it is a B2B platform? ¿Cuáthey are the largest B2B platforms to do business with China?

B2B means “business to business”, that is to say “company to company”. It is a system in líline for companies, who sell goods to the other. The companyñía, who runs the página web, manages the money from membership feesón and additional quotes (keep this in mind), and – of course – you can charge each transactionón successful according to your own rules.

There are several B2B platforms in China, the más famous is Alibaba, spaghettiéthere is no Makepolo, DhGate.com, Made-in-China O Global Sources, what are the más reliable. Each of them works in a similar way: a seller can create their company profile, display productsón and wait for buyers to come. The Páweb pages can offer additional services: as a message center, messenger toolsía, and even someún type of verificationóNo of provider services.

 

¿Whaté type of companies isán present on China's B2B platforms?

someone once said that “the 70% of those companies are scammers”. It's an opinionón exaggerated, but we have to be aware that many of these companies can be dishonest, establishing an account on a B2B platform is, afteréI know everything, very fácil.

At first we mustñalarming that many of these companies are merchants, not the manufacturers. They buy the goodsíif and fábrica, sell it to foreign customers and, of course, they collect their profit, así that the goodsíso they can be a bit moreás guys. If our goal is not very big, and when we want to obtain various products and buy them from a company, using merchant services is not a bad idea.

In second place, many companies pass themselves off as real companies, legíteam: if you think about it, it's not that complicated, they just need to copy imágenes in all products and publish them in your own página (Thus, we must check if the imágenes are marked). As soon as we prepay the company, it may completely disappear with our money.

 

¿Whaté is he “golden supplier”? ¿It means that the company is trustworthy?

Said in Spanishñoh one “Gold Provider” is someone who paid a premium account for suppliers on Alibaba. There is alsoén on other B2B platforms, F.E. and Makepolo (What “diamond member”). La informationón key is that the membership feeón is paid by the seller and, as we mentioned above, is one of the ways to earn money from the B2B platform. Así that he “Gold Provider” you have some additional features enabled on your páprofile page and your products appear positioned in the search engineúb2b search: but that doesn't mean i'm trustworthy. “gold supplier” it means only one thing – that the company was able to pay the membership feeía premium (that is of $ 3000 al añor on Alibaba).