I am here in Beijing to moderate a B2B panel for Ad Tech, which will be held on tomorrow. While I was doing my last minute speaker homework, I listened to the webcast of Global Sources Analyst Day.

What really interested me was the launch of Global Sources Online 2.0. Global Sources positions the new online solution as, “… enhanced vertical search engine and marketplace…, providing buyers with a large selection of export suppliers and products, along with the ability to identify verified suppliers.”

According to the presentation, the forthcoming GS Online 2.0 (the launch is scheduled on 18 Oct) will emphasize on the quality of information, where all the sellers will be vertified and the buyers will be profiled. GS Online 2.0 is distinguished as a vertical search engine. Well, in my opinion, the user experience has been upgraded from the traditional cascaded navigation to a more intuitive search centric environment.

Not only GS who makes the move to search. A couple of sourcing portals have the same search feature. GS Online 2.0 ranks suppliers using its proprietary algorithm and weighting system, which will give the buyers a better trusted result. The new proposition looks like the same as TooToo.com’s Total Quality Sourcing, a.k.a. TQS, and I am sure Alibaba has the same trusted search feature for its Gold Suppliers, so does the Audited Supplier search on Made-In-China.com.

Experienced buyers who have been doing sourcing in China know very well about the importance of the selling leads authentication. A procurement procedure will probably require comparison over several sources of suppliers. If everyone in the market claims the same authenticity based on different proprietary ranking algorithms, the search and comparison among different sources are still on. I hardly see the efficiency can be yielded. But having said that, the Sourcingizers do have better advantage over other competitors by bridging the buyer-seller communication gap.

Suddenly the whole B2B media landscape in this region is heading vertical. To me, vertical means integration. The supply chain has been long existed and we should know sourcing is only a part of the vertical process. The price sensitive buyers optimize the total cost of product while searching for the trusted suppliers. After sourcing, they still need to move on to design, assembling, packaging, distribution and all the necessary logistics. Buyers shop while thinking about integration ahead.

The revamp of the sourcing portals which emphasizes vertical search takes part only on product search by improving the trust level. They should be called “trusted search” not vertical search. Although the trusted search is essentially important for B2B sourcing, the buyers’ consideration set has not been taken care across the whole vertical chain.

So, yes, the search is on, the result is trusted, but the experience isn’t vertical, yet.

 Subscribe my feed