Inquiries from real customers refer to inquiries from customers who have real needs for the seller’s products. Real customers are the main body of cross-border e-commerce B2B inquiries. According to the size and purchasing power, real customers can be divided into large customers and small and medium-sized customers; according to the different purposes of customer demand products, real customers can be divided into terminal customers and trading companies. The former is for the purpose of direct use of products, and the latter is for the purpose of resale trade: according to the length of business negotiation time, real customers can be divided into short-term and fast customers and long-term customers. The former refers to customers with a short business negotiation time and a fast transaction, and the latter refers to customers who have long-term demand for products but have no purchase plans in the short term, but are willing to keep in touch with you. However, in fact, real customers are often composite, such as long-term small and medium-sized trading companies, short-term and fast large terminal customers, long-term small and medium-sized terminal customers, etc. When considering the type of inquiry, salesmen should use different classification standards for comprehensive measurement and accurately formulate targeted response strategies.
Salesmen can formulate real customer classification principles based on the commonalities of industry customer groups in practical work. Taking daily consumer goods as an example, suppliers of daily consumer goods can classify them into department stores, large chain supermarkets, brand importers, wholesalers, comprehensive buyers, retailers, and government buyers based on the characteristics of their purchasing behavior, as shown in Figure 3-3. Each type of customer has different purchasing behavior characteristics. Department stores usually cooperate with large trading companies, not directly with suppliers. Such customers are obviously not the key customers of suppliers of daily consumer goods; while large chain supermarkets usually cooperate directly with suppliers, have high requirements for suppliers, and keep prices very low. However, once suppliers cooperate with such customers, it means long-term orders will continue, so such customers are the focus of cooperation for suppliers of daily consumer goods.