Getting information from Internet and other sources Thanks to Internet you can get almost all needed information from various online sources. This includes: trade data statistics, country profile, demography and other market related data, list of prospective customers, etc.

To take an informative decision while selecting a market you will need answers to following questions:

- How big is demand for your product or similar products in targeted market? - What is ratio between domestic production and import? - Who are main competitors in this market? - What is growth potential of market? - How strong are they in comparison to you? - What is import duty structure for your product? - Is there any incentive available to you from your country for exporting this product?

Answers to these questions will give you enough facts to compare markets you have chosen for assessment. While taking final decision on export market, don’t forget to study business and social cultures of specific country. This could be an important issue in selecting right market for you.

Selling your products

Once you targeted market you would like to pursue, you next step is to start selling your products to that market.

There are several marketing options available for you to choose from:

Hire an export trading house from your country The advantage, if you find right export trading house, is experience and knowledge company may have. The draw back is they might not be interested in your products, and if they do, you have to pay a major share from your sales to them as their commission.

Find a distributor in targeted market to sell your products

This is, no doubt, a very good option. However, finding a good distributor for a product which does not have a proven track record of sale in market won’t be that easy.

Sell products to customers from targeted market directly

Initially, you might have to stick to this option only. B2B exchanges and emarketplaces from targeted market can be a good place to start your venture.

Here are steps you need to take if you would like to sell your products through E-marketplaces.

1. Seek out largest emarketplace for country of your choice.You should consider both vertical and horizontal marketplaces. 2. Register with them. 3. Create a Web Site, if you don’t have yet, in local language. 4. Add your products to e-catalog of emarketplaces. 5. Post your products for sale to marketplace. 6. Post frequent sell trade leads. 7. Search for companies interested to by products similar to yours and contact them.

International trade business, same like any other business requires months, sometimes even several years, to bring anticipated profit. Aggressive use of Internet will help you achieve your goal with lesser investment and faster result.

Apart from your own buyers other prospective customers from emarketplace community are able to view your products in e-catalog, which in turn will bring you new contacts and sales.

Create products for sale offers You should create sales offer of your primary products that you carry most of time and post them on emarketplace. Many emarketplaces have options to sell products with different procedures. You can make offer to sell access inventories through dynamic market, also called auction, you can make hot offers with time limit, etc. This is an extra sales channel in beginning, which might grow into your primary one!

Involve your buyers and sellers If you would like to use an emarketplace most effectively, you have to get your suppliers and buyers on board too. Supply chain management solution that usually comes with an emarketplace allows you to reduce operational costs significantly.

- Encourage your buyers to send request for quote for a product through inbuilt system of emarketplace.

- Make strict rules within your company to send all quotes exclusively through emarketplace.

- Ask your buyers to send Purchase Orders to your company via emarketplace.

- Bill all your clients using invoicing system of emarketplace.

- Manage shipping and handling though emarketplaces.

- Convince your suppliers to use same emarketplace so that even as a buyer you can get benefits of a B2B exchange.

Complete adoption of an emarketplace will help a company gain numerous benefits. The following figures taken from various research notes emphasize importance of e-marketplace in today’s business world.

- Thanks to emarketplace, companies can reduce purchase order processing cost from US $75 to less than US $10.

- By automating sales and customer support processes companies can lower overhead costs up to 25 – 30% easily.

- Companies also can reduce more than five percent of their maintenance, repair and operation by incorporating e-business solutions, which are integral parts of any emarketplace.

- Business process automation using B2B emarketplace helps companies decreasing of document errors from 20 percent to less than one percent.

B2B Emarketplace solutions are great opportunities

The famous inventor Thomas Edison once told, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Company executives are by no means afraid of hard work, but unfortunately many of them have colossal fear of high technology and because of this reluctant to explore new Internet-based technologies to their advantage. If you are one of them, be assured that knowledge required to adopt emarketplace to your business and manage it properly is easy to learn and implement.