Online, B2B (business-to-business), also called e-biz, is the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses rather than between businesses and customers. How to Pick a B2B site? Here are a few tips:
1. Website traffic
Here you must consider two issues. First, how hot is the B2B marketplace worldwide? (For instance: tradetuber.com. B2B sites ranked in the top 100,000 of all sites may be worthwhile. Lower ranked trade sites are old and not worth your time or new and not worth your effort.
Next, how much traffic do they get out of your primary industry? By way of example, many B2B sites in Malaysia are extremely popular there, but they get very little traffic from America and Europe. If you’re looking for buyers from these markets, then a popular B2B site in Malaysia won’t be very effective.
Using Alexa.com, it is possible to see country popularity lower on the page below the statistics tables. Check what percent of users are in the USA (or other markets) and the popularity rank in the country you are most interested in the market to?
2. Directory Information
All B2B sites list companies in an online directory. However, you need to be concerned with B2B websites that simply buy lists to build their directory. On those sites — of which there are many — firms often don’t even know they are recorded. In addition, company information is generally not updated.
The result of this is that you may spend time sending messages to companies, and the response will be quite low because the info is old, or the recipient doesn’t even understand log in information.
In Alietc.com, all directory listings have been produced by company representatives. They have never purchased a list of companies and added them to our directory. Moreover, they rank companies based on their online activity.
3. Online promotion
The last consideration for evaluating a B2B website is to ascertain what sort of promotion you will get. In this regard, all trade websites promote paid members over free members. The question is, will you get strong enough promotion for it to be well worth the membership fees?
It is worthwhile to join and be a free member of the top B2B sites. In fact, it’s a great way to evaluate which site provides the most qualified inquiries. However, creating simple accounts with poor information on free B2B sites actually hurts your company more than it helps it.
Whatever information your company has online, make sure it is detailed and professional. Anything less is a sales killer!
It is worthwhile to upgrade your membership at a B2B site that has active buyers of your goods and will provide strong promotion for your products. By way of instance, Alietc.com is a great B2B website for Malaysia companies — but in fact, suppliers from different countries are buried in search results below their “Gold Suppliers” — which are all from Malaysia. So, while the site is extremely popular, it does not provide strong marketing for traders out of Malaysia.
