Foreign trade sellers need to promote their products mainly through four methods: exhibitions, foreign trade B2B platforms, SEO and SEM promotion, and overseas social media promotion. Of course, there is no absolutely perfect way to promote products, and all of them have their pros and cons. The following is an analysis of the pros and cons of the first two promotion methods by Alibaba.
1. Exhibitions.
1) Pros:
Contact potential buyers with more accurate, professional, and clear needs, and both parties can quickly establish a buyer relationship.
It enables potential buyers to see the product in person and more easily communicate.
It saves time for follow-up with buyers such as telephone marketing and visits.
Face-to-face communication, hand-to-hand understanding, and a greater probability of signing orders.
2) Cons:
Exhibition booths are expensive, and continuous investment is higher
The procedures are complicated. If exhibits are involved in export, if you want to exhibit abroad, it must be organized by an approved organizer with exhibition rights.
If you do not sign a buyer, you will have to wait a long time before you can participate again, and the risk of waiting is very high.
Under the influence of geopolitics, it may be rejected by some countries. When participating in exhibitions abroad, it may also encounter protective exclusion measures against local sellers by local governments.
Domestic exhibition peers are too concentrated, and price transparency is prone to malicious competition, price slaughter, and forced to painfully reduce prices.
2. Foreign trade B2B platform.
1) Advantages:
The entry threshold is low, and products can be posted online if they meet the entry conditions.
Foreign buyers with high visibility and familiarity with B2B platforms can become fixed traffic.
2) Disadvantages:
Platform rules constraints. It is necessary to pay attention to changes in platform rules and adjust the direction of operation.
Buyer data is incomplete. If the buyer’s phone information may be hidden by the platform.
Peer competition is concentrated, and dark competition such as price wars and malicious bad reviews is prone to occur. Because only by spending money can you occupy a prominent position on the platform, for small and medium-sized sellers, the cost of competition is very high and they cannot defeat large sellers.
The platform may seize the seller’s business. Some platforms may set up an official direct sales store to compete with sellers and use buyer data to mine buyers.
The above is an analysis of the pros and cons of exhibitions and foreign trade B2B platform promotion among the foreign trade promotion methods. Foreign trade sellers who want to do this kind of promotion can use it as a reference. The pros and cons of the other two promotion methods will be analyzed later. Sellers who want to know more can continue to pay attention to Lianlian Cross-border Payment.