How to find a Chinese supplier

  It is not easy for Kenya exporters to find proper Chinese supplier,Suppose you come up with a product idea or think you have market channels for certain products, and you want to find a supplier in China because of the low product development cost and low production cost there. If you Google the product name or concept, you will find tons of Chinese supplier/manufacturers. However, you still think you have not got one, because you want to find a capable and reliable one that would satisfy your specific needs and have a strong desire to do business with you. Many people get frustrated because they have been communicating with suppliers in China for months, but fail to move forward. The reason, most likely, is that they did not find the suitable one at the beginning. To successfully find a suitable Chinese supplier, you need a platform.

   It is highly recommended to use Cross-border platform resources.This platform must consist of verified brand,experience of Internet study,Logistics service system.B2B Sino-Africa platform -Amanbo deserve a try !

Below are some practical steps to find a suitable Chinese supplier for you.

  1,Understand what you need.  You need to first know what is available and have a way to categorize the information. Here are some categories to help you think about Chinese suppliers: manufacturer vs. 3rd-party supplier; Big corporation vs. small family-owned; 3rd-party supplier with in-house product development capability vs. 3rd-party supplier that just buys-in and sells-out; vertically integrated manufacturer vs. assembly-based manufacturer; etc. Properly categorizing the suppliers will help you understand what you need. For example, if you need to import products in a narrow range, you may choose a manufacturer other than a 3rd-party supplier. If you are a small business and need dedicated attention, you may want to develop a good relationship with a small family-owned business.

  2, Do some preliminary Internet research to further develop your category system towards your specific needs.Create a data table to help you record the search result, so the job can be done more efficiently and effectively. The table should include columns like company name, contact information, business scale and scope, category check boxes (important), and notes

 3.Use search engines to search information related to your product name. The first 100 results would be the most relevant websites related to the product of your concern. You can also find your competitors' information and develop a better sense of market segment and marketing channels.

 4.quick responses.The directory websites are also excellent resources to obtain industrial knowledge.

  5.Narrow down the list of suppliers you want to work with to a manageable amount. At this stage, you may already know what your real needs are and what is available. Initiate contact with the Chinese suppliers you want to work with, and further develop relationships with them. Eventually, you will find the one. The process can be a fun and friendly experience. 

  6.Find a Chinese local business to help you. The local men know how to check the Chinese supplier, some special business manner is unknown by the foreign ones, once you have a local guide, all your business work will be easy.

South Africa ’s online shopping habits revealed

 A new study conducted by research firm Ipsos shows that only 22% of South African Internet users have made purchases online, but that 48% expect to do so in future.

 

   A new study conducted by research firm Ipsos shows that only 22% of South African Internet users have made purchases online, but that 48% expect to do so in future.

 The research, conducted on behalf of PayPal and First National Bank, shows that e-commerce penetration in South Africa is still relatively low by global standards, according to PayPal’s regional director for Africa and Israel, Efi Dahan.

 “However, the number of online shoppers is expected to nearly triple in South Africa, making the country a significant e-commerce force in the region,” he said in a statement issued with the research results.

Key findings of the research include:

Ø 70% of South African Internet users are potential online shoppers.

Ø Digital goods are the most popular items bought online, purchsed by 52% of online shoppers on the past 12 months, followed by event tickets (50%), travel purchases (45%), fashion (38%) and consumer electronics (38%).

Ø Security concerns remain the biggest barrier to people shopping online, followed by concerns about their orders not being delivered.

Ø Half of online shoppers who own a smartphone or a feature phone have used it to shop online.

 According to the research results, the key drivers that would encourage South Africans to shop online more often are lower product costs (88% of online shoppers say this would make them more likely to shop online), faster delivery (selected by 85% of online shoppers), flexible delivery options (selected by 82% online shoppers) and safer ways to pay (selected by 75% online shoppers).

 They most frequently visited shopping platform is Amanbo, because they delighted to pick same products with lower price , while the service did not shrink.

 More than two-thirds (71%) of current online shoppers indicated that if they did not have to keep re-entering payments or delivery details, they would be more likely to shop online more often. Meanwhile, 51% of online shoppers indicated that not having to register on a website to make a purchase would make them  shop online more often.

  When asked about main barriers for online shopping, 67% of non online shoppers indicated that online security of payments is a reason for not shopping online, while 58% of those who have not shopped online say that concerns about not receiving items they have ordered is a reason they don’t shop online.

 Ipsos’s research found South African consumers are big fans of coupons and promotions, with 85% of online shoppers indicating that it would encourage them to shop online more often.

Build An Online Store Like A Pro

 It is a quite common misconception that if you build an online store on your own, it will end up looking homemade and unprofessional. That might have been the case a handful of years ago. But these days, there are web-store building tools at your disposal that are extremely powerful and fairly easy to use. A person who is not a programmer can in fact build a professional-looking online store. All you have to do is follow a few tips and

guidelines:

  

Tip #1 When preparing to build your online store, consider that most modern, high-end websites are relatively wide in size format. A lot of this has to do with site owners and programmers taking advantage of increased screen real estate as the prices of wide monitors have dropped. I've found that 960 pixels is just about the perfect width. It's a very balanced size and you'll find that many of the huge sites out there, such as Yahoo and MSN, hover right around the 960 pixel mark. Yahoo is actually a little narrower and MSN is a little wider. So, if you build your online store with a 960 pixel page width, you'll be in a range that your customers are likely both familiar and comfortable with. Interestingly, most of the store building tools that are intended for non-programmers come with a default page width setting of around 720 pixels. So, be sure to change that before you start any of your design and layout work.

Tip #2 To help you choose the colors of your online store, utilize one of the many free color scheme guides and utilities available online. There are professionals out there who have thoroughly studied color usage and combinations. So, there really is no need to make any guesses at what colors work well and are visually appealing on a computer screen. People have already figured that out for you... Just search online with a phrase like "web color scheme" and you will soon find some great palettes to use as is, or to modify a bit with your own personal touch.

   The other thing to keep in mind about color choice is that you want the palette to appeal to the majority of your targeted customer base, and not just to yourself. So, it's important to enlist the help of a friend or two to review potential color palettes with you. Also, note that research has shown that women and men literally perceive colors differently. Therefore, if the online store you want to build is geared more towards one sex or another, definitely obtain color opinions from people of the most pertinent gender.

   Tip #3 For many people, one of the most daunting aspects of building an online store is the challenge of designing artwork or graphical page elements. But luckily, there are many "stock photo" sites on the web where you can purchase professional artwork and photography for as little as $5.00 per image. Try to stay with "royalty free" artwork and photos so that you don't have any recurring fees or copyright licensing complications. Also, it helps tremendously if you stick with a series of art elements or photos from either one artist or one photographer respectively. This will make your store look more pulled together and coordinated.

  Many of the stock photo companies sell their artwork and photos in varying sizes and resolutions. For online stores and websites, you only need 72 dpi images. So, you can usually get away with buying the less expensive, smaller images. But, if you have access to software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, and can therefore re-size artwork and photos as needed, you might want to invest in the more expensive, higher resolution images. This gives you more flexibility with respect to potentially re-using the artwork or photos in future projects.

  Tip #4 If at all possible, try to obtain professional photographs of whatever products you are selling. Oftentimes, you can build your store using product images provided by either your products' manufacturers or distributors. This will save you a considerable amount of time because it can take quite awhile to properly stage items for photography. But more importantly, the product images supplied by manufacturers or distributors will help give your store a professional look and feel. Of course, if you are a talented photographer, or have a friend who is one, take advantage of that and produce your own custom set of product images.

  Tip #5 If you have some dollars budgeted towards helping you get your store kick-started, you can certainly find some very affordable online graphic services. There are several companies online that will professionally design a logo graphic for you that you can then easily paste into your website. I've spent from $65 up to about $300 with a few different online logo design companies and I was happy with the end result each time. I think it's very important to have some type of logo in your store header, even if it's just a simple graphic. It makes a site look so much more polished than if you were to just type HTML text in your header with your store's name.

  Summary If you build your online store while following the above tips and guidelines, you will very likely be proud of the end result. You will have basically benefitted from the support of professional graphic artists, photographers, and color specialists. But, you'll still have bragging rights because you will have built your own online store.

Products To Sell Through Your Online Store

 An obvious first step to starting an online store is figuring out what you are going to sell. Perhaps you already know what that product is. And, maybe it is an item that you manufacture yourself. If you have your product choice all figured out, you may want to skip to the next section. But, for those of you who are still trying to figure out what to sell, I have some pointers to offer you and I also have a few things for you to think through.

Is There a Market Niche That Interests You?

 

 Start off by thinking about things you know well and that are of interest to you. Carefully consider your area of personal interest and try to remember whether you have ever felt that you were in need of a particular product that you couldn't easily find. If so, you may be onto an underserved niche and therefore a step closer to figuring out what to sell. Operating within a market niche has a meaningful advantage when it comes to selling products through a website. This is simply because there are so many people selling on the web these days. So, if you pick a type of product to sell that is very common or mainstream, you are going to have to work extra hard to effectively compete.

What Product Price Range Should You Target?

  Give some thought as to whether you will sell expensive products or inexpensive products. Though this may seem like a trivial discussion point, there are very important ramifications based upon which way you go. Specifically, it can take a long time for a new website to garner a meaningful amount of traffic. So, if you are selling low-cost products, it may take a very long time before you are achieving enough sales volume to be generating a reasonable level of cashflow. On the other hand, if you are selling a more costly product, you might be able to sell just one or a few items each month and still be making a decent income. Of course, this is all highly dependent upon your personal budget and the timeframe within which you are wanting or needing to become successful with your new online store.

Can You Sell Products That You Don't Have to Buy in Advance With Your Own Money?

  Consider if you are going to buy bulk product stock in advance and do your own packaging/shipping. Or, are you going to be more of a virtual retailer who markets and sells products that you don't actually carry, but rather, that get shipped from a third-party distributor directly to your customers, on your behalf, whenever your online store makes a sale? You may already know that this process is called "drop-shipping". Both of these online store operating methods have pluses and minuses. And, there are lot's of people out there who've been successful with either method.

 Going the drop-shipping route provides the obvious financial benefit of not having to front money to acquire products that you then have to store somewhere in advance of making sales. But, a significant downside is that you are putting a critical aspect of customer service in the hands of a third-party. Specifically, by having a distributor ship product directly to your customers, you are trusting that the distributor will properly package the goods you have sold and that they will ship the items in a timely manner to your customer. Proper packaging and fast order turnaround times are both highly critical aspects of getting repeat business and referral business from your customers. So, if you do go the drop-shipping route, be sure that you are working with a reputable, efficient distributor. After all, by shipping directly to your customers, the third-party distributor is controlling a tremendously important part of your business. Basically, it is a bit of a downside to the drop-shipping method in that you are giving up some control of the customer service process. However, you can mitigate this by being highly selective of your drop-ship partners.

  In addition to not having to front money to acquire and store products, the drop-ship operating model also has a huge advantage in that it allows you to build a seemingly gigantic online store, even if it's really just you operating in the background at home. Specifically, you could literally list thousands of products in your online store and then spend your days coordinating with multiple drop-ship distribution warehouses as customers make purchases through your site. A friend of mine started doing this with consumer electronics several years ago. Initially, his company was very small infrastructure-wise. However, from almost day 1, it looked huge online because he was seemingly carrying hundreds of different products. But now, after years of steady sales growth, his company truly is big and he has over 50 full-time employees working for him.

  As a final note about drop-shipping, there is yet another downside to mention. It is the fact that the vast majority of products that are available for drop-shipping are already being marketed by hundreds (if not thousands) of websites. This is simply because there are a lot of people who like the idea of selling products that they don't have to purchase and store in advance of sales. So, it somewhat challenging to identify a product niche, without a lot of competing sellers, that is available for drop-shipping. It's challenging, but definitely not impossible. And, if you have the resources, timeline, and strategic cunning to be able to compete with other businesses, it might actually be acceptable to you to sell drop-shipped products in a competitive market segment.

Some tips about starting an online shop in kenya

Some tips about starting an online shop in Kenya

 

 Whenever you look around you, have you noticed that everyone wants to sell or buy something? Every day, people place advertisements in the newspapers, billboards, magazines, internet, radio and other platforms of items for sale. You can take advantage of this and turn it into a business idea.

 All you need to do is to seek a platform for all these people to sell their items, and you will make good money. Companies such as Jumia, Amanbo, Rupu, Kilimall and many others have already taken advantage of this by providing an online platform where sellers meet buyers and make sales. It is worth mentioning that, Amanbo is a free platform for starting a online shop, they only get a commission until your order turnover.

 Innovate Your Business and Start Selling Online - following are some helpful tips and advice

TIP 1: - starting an online store can involve some work; you need to manage orders and customers, update and add content, manage marketing and social media, and setup the store. So you need to be able to use the administration and content management system provided. The best way to find out if you can manage it for yourself is to try. Amanbo provide a free system so you can try it for yourself.

What is your business model?

  When you sell online you can support different business models. Typically it will be B2C - Business to Consumer or B2B - Business to Business. Some online stores want to support both. B2C is the basis of most online retail. If you want to sell to other businesses like wholesale or re-sellers then the model will be B2B. The main difference is that not everyone can access and buy from a B2B online store and in general the customer will need a user name and password to login.

What languages and currencies do you want?

  You may only want to sell in Kenya Ksh right now but things can change. The solution that you choose should be multilingual and multi-currency meaning it can support many languages and every currency type in the world. You will need to setup tax, payment and shipping to support your requirements. 

Does your platform you use have legal policies?

 Website terms and conditions and terms of use are a must for any ecommerce website, while a privacy policy is a good idea if you’re planning on using customer information for marketing or to sell to advertisers.

TIP 2: - If you want to accept payment online and collect customer personal information then your online store will need to be secure and support SSL encryption. When taking payment online you will also need a hosting company that is PCI DSS Compliant. If you show that your store is secure it will improve your shopping basket conversion rate.

TIP 3: - If you support multiple channels to market like an online store, amanbo and other shopping portals or even a bricks and mortar store you can improve your results by as much as 300%.

To be Successful selling online you need to have Successful and Return customers

1,Graphic Design - Create a great User Experience .

2,Great Content Means More Customers:CONTENT IS KING

3.Payment Gateway - make sure your customers feel Secure.

4.Shipping and Logistics - get your products to your customers efficiently

5.Connect to accounting systems to automate your business

 

TIP 4:- Return customers cost you less to retain that getting new customers. Return customer's order value is generally higher than first time customers. Offer your customers coupons, discounts and special offers to promote customer retention and loyalty.

 

1,Web Analytics - Visitor and Page Tracking - Know your customers.

2,SEO(Search Engine Optimisation) and ( Search Engine Marketing)- Get your Online Store found by Search Engines

 Search Engines like Google and Bing are responsible for driving 80% of the traffic and sales to your online store. If your store is not set up to be friendly for search engines then you will not be as successful as you want. 

 

 

 

 

 

TIP 5:- Make sure that you understand all of your requirements for your eCommerce business.

 Understand your requirements and learn some of the terminology used by online store vendors. Then prepare a list of your requirements and prioritise them (high, medium, low) this will help you to get a solution that will work best for your business.