It is well-known that nowadays more and more small and medium enterprises take part in the B2B platform. But do you know why they choose B2B platform? What does the platform bring to them? How do they choose a suitable one? What are the problems when choosing B2B platform? That’s the point I want to talk about today.
1.Why do the small and medium enterprises choose B2B platform? What are the benefits?
The e-commerce not only brings many new opportunities and challenges to the small and medium enterprises, but also solves many difficulties and problems for them. Since the growing importance of information competition, small and medium enterprises can compete against the large enterprises through B2B platform. The specific effects and benefits are mainly as follows:
First, the B2B platform brings them the opportunity to join in the international competition. It gives them more opportunities to sell their products all over the world, that is, globalize their markets.
Second, the B2B platform enables them to timely respond to the changes of international market. Small and medium enterprises can get large amount of information about the international market, meanwhile, the platform simplifies the traditional trade process and trade methods. It overcomes the problem of long geographic distance and shortens the marketing chain so as to quicken the development of small and medium enterprises. Thus, the enterprises can find a proper method to adapt to the international changes positively and correctly.
Third, small and medium enterprises can get high profits with lower cost in the foreign trade activities through B2B platform. The platform largely increases their efficiency. The enterprises can carry out all the operational procedures online such as negotiating with customers, making orders, signing contacts, booking charters and paying taxes etc.. So it shortens the transaction time and makes the transaction much more convenient. In addition, it reduces their costs. With the lower cost of network communication and management, small and medium enterprises can get the storage swapping and information processing, through which they can save a lot of money.
2.How do small and medium enterprises select a suitable B2B platform?
Since the B2B platform is beneficial to the small and medium enterprises, how to choose an appropriate one becomes an urgent problem. In my opinion, the small and medium enterprises should solve the problem from the following aspects.
First, the B2B platform should be both in Chinese and in English. Meanwhile, the English website should list real and reliable information in a reasonable way instead of the simple accumulation of information. Further more, the B2B website should have a right development model which enables small and medium enterprises to avoid unnecessary problems, save more money and gain large amount of profits.
Second, the B2B platform should be in mature condition at home and abroad. But how do you judge its condition? I think the key point is the search engine technology, in that the customers always pay much attention to the products search when they are purchasing on the B2B websites. The advanced search engine technology makes the customers search the products much more conveniently, rapidly and accurately so that they have a great sense of satisfaction. As we know, almost all the people who intend to buy products online want to enjoy their shopping freely. So, will they be happy when they are searching products in a slow search speed? Of course not, instead, the impatient customers will give up the website. Moreover, the content of the website should be another respect that you’d better to consider about. That is to check whether the product description is specific or not, whether the company introduction is reliable and whether the product has a good photo to show etc.
Third, the B2B platform should be strongly promoted both at home and overseas. Besides of Canton Fair, the B2B websites should participate in some other international exhibitions such as China International Consumer Goods Fair, China Hi-Tech Fair, China-Asean Expo etc. which can not only raise their profile abroad but also lay a solid foundation of overseas visits and accumulated information of international buyers.
Fourth, the B2B platform should have a reasonable pricing model. Take Alibaba as an example, it is very famous, but the cost is also much higher than any other B2B website. As a small and medium enterprise, the most important principle is to increase income and economize on expenditure. So, you should consider the cost performance of the whole B2B website. At present, ECVV introduces a new pricing model that is paying for performance. It is paid according to the inquiries acquired but not the service time like annual fee. Firstly, you prepay a certain amount of money so that you can look over some information of the inquiries but not all the contents. And then whether to check through the whole information of the inquiry depends on yourself. If you decide to see the whole content of one inquiry, it will deduct 30RMB from your prepaid money. You can check the inquiries until you spend all the prepaid money. According to this new kind of pricing model, you only need to pay for the effective inquiries you think and you can avoid the disturbance of the fake ones.
Fifth, once you choose a B2B platform, remember to persist to it. What you should keep in your mind is that you can gain a lot only if you adhere to it by seriously following the principles of B2B platform. And also your promotion in the B2B website tells the buyers that you are developing in a stable speed in that field. Especially nowadays, suffering the financial crisis and economic downtown, you should do such low-cost promotion online to get the limited orders and keep yourself far from the elimination.
3.What are the problems when choosing the B2B platform?
When selecting the suitable B2B platform, there are many problems. And now I want to talk about the basic two mistaken ideas you should avoid.
One is lack of planning. Many small and medium enterprises only pay attention to the short-term benefits. It is wrong. It should have a specific process, such as collecting and releasing the information, establishing the information platform and completing the supply chain management system etc. b2bmap product directory offer wholesale price products
The other is not to select the B2B platform blindly. Some small and medium enterprises only pursuit for the reputation of the B2B website without combining their actual development situation. There probably be some problems. It is likely that the reputed B2B platform already has had many members of your industry and dozens of pages of products. Given that you were a customer, will you click all the pages even tens of pages? Therefore, you can get nothing from the B2B platform where there are excessive suppliers and you can’t list your products in the first several pages.
All in all, to choose a suitable B2B platform, small and medium enterprises should try your best to free yourselves from mistaken ideas, analyze the problems from the correct and rational perspectives, and combine the B2B website with your real development conditions.