It is relatively easy to understand the channels for obtaining export business opportunities, but it seems to be much more difficult to do it, especially for some small and medium-sized enterprises, which do not have advantages in brand, capital, talent, information, etc. Even if they know where to obtain business opportunities, they will not be able to obtain these business opportunities because of the actual limitations of the company’s strength. For example, if you ask customers to use their own brands, the customers may turn around and leave, because they are worried that their customers will skip them and purchase directly from you one day. Another example is participating in international exhibitions. For many small and medium-sized enterprises, how easy is it? There is no experience, no talent, and even no idea where to go to participate in which exhibition.
In fact, the common methods used by China’s larger and stronger manufacturing exporters to obtain export business opportunities are:
Use their own brands;
Keep close cooperation with the purchasing agents of large international companies;
Participate in international exhibitions in the industry;
Advertise in industry magazines;
Advertise on industry websites;
Visit target customers directly.
The more practical ways for small and medium-sized exporters to obtain business opportunities are:
Participate in international exhibitions held in China, a typical example is the Canton Fair;
Contact the purchasing agents of large companies in the world and promote themselves;
Use some B2B websites with relatively high inquiry quality. My experience is that made-in-china.com has fewer inquiries, and because the competition is not so fierce, the chance of a certain inquiry being successful is generally higher than other B2B websites;
Search for purchase information on industry websites or comprehensive trade websites;
Advertise on search engines;
Use search engine optimization marketing, or SEO;
Log in to various yellow pages and directories as much as possible.
Of course, the above classification is not absolute, and large exporters often pay attention to the channels used by small and medium-sized exporters.