How foreign trade e-commerce evaluates customers and their importance

In the field of foreign trade e-commerce, the importance of understanding and evaluating customers is self-evident. This not only helps companies save valuable time and avoid falling into the trap of bad inquiries, but also helps companies better locate target customers, thereby promoting the healthy development of the company.

Customer Attractiveness Assessment

Customer attraction can be considered from the following aspects:

• Visibility: The higher a customer’s visibility, the greater their influence on other potential customers and therefore the greater their appeal.
• Market size: The size of the market where the customer is located directly affects the sales volume of the product. The larger the market size, the more attractive it is to companies.
• Market complementarity: If the customer’s market can complement the company’s current market coverage, the customer is highly attractive.
• Demand for customization: When customers require less customization of a product, it usually means lower costs and greater appeal.
• Payment terms: The closer the customer’s payment terms are to industry standards, the more attractive they will be.
• Price requirements: Customers’ price requirements should not compress the company’s reasonable profit margins, otherwise it will reduce its attractiveness.
• Purchasing scope: The more types of products a customer purchases, the greater the possibility and appeal of cooperation between the two parties.

The company’s ability to meet customer needs

A company’s ability to successfully attract and retain customers depends largely on its ability to meet customer needs:

• Product Quality: Product quality is a basic requirement, and companies that fail to meet this will have difficulty winning customer trust.
• Delivery deadline: On-time delivery directly affects customer satisfaction.
• Financing Capability: For capital-intensive projects, a company’s financing capabilities are crucial.
• Supply volume: Stable supply volume is the basis for long-term cooperation.
• Packaging: Good packaging not only protects the product but is also part of the brand image.
• Transportation arrangements: Reasonable logistics solutions can improve customer experience.
• Additional Services: In addition to basic transactions, providing more value-added services can increase customer stickiness.

Strategies to be adopted in different situations

Based on the above analysis, we can draw four different situations and propose corresponding countermeasures:

• When customers are attractive and the company can meet their needs, cooperation should be actively pursued.
• Faced with customers who are highly attractive but whose needs are difficult to meet, the cost-benefit ratio needs to be weighed before making a decision.
• For customers who are less attractive but whose needs are easy to meet, their value can be increased by optimizing services.
• Finally, when a customer is neither attractive nor satisfying their needs, it is best to give up.

Methods for evaluating customers

Considering the difficulty of on-site inspections, foreign trade e-commerce companies mainly rely on the following methods for customer evaluation:

• Professional consulting companies: such as D&B, Coface and China Export Insurance Company, etc.
• Web search: Use search engines to find relevant information, including but not limited to company official websites, media reports, etc.
• Domain name query: Understand the history and related background of the website by querying domain name registration information.
• Telephone interview: Contact the other company directly to obtain first-hand information.

Correctly evaluating customers can not only help foreign trade e-commerce companies select high-quality partners, but also bring more business opportunities and development space to the company. Therefore, mastering effective evaluation methods is crucial for foreign trade e-commerce.