If you live in Hong Kong and read Metro News, an advertising-sponsored free newspaper distributed to subway commuters, you will read a new Alibaba column written by David Wen, the CEO of Alibaba.com.
Mr. Wen talks about how Alibaba works and why SMEs will be benefited from using the Internet sourcing solution. The idea behind Internet sourcing has been widely advocated for at least 10 years. The same metaphor has been using in many different occasions by different Internet B2B media: 24×7 non-stop exhibition, easy to be found by overseas buyers, certified with quality, better fulfillment, etc, etc.
These are pretty much true. Internet sourcing is going mainstream and we can’t deny the fact that buyers’ experience today are all started from Internet. Compare to 10 years ago, today we no longer see virtual sourcing a rivalry to physical trade show. They actually get along quite well. Even David Wen in his Metro News column has highlighted the integration and how two things can be combined together for better effectiveness. Hmm… I don’t know if this will raise another speculation again (not the first time indeed) about Alibaba embracing trade show and will follow the footsteps of Global Sources to run exhibition business.
Anyway, time flies and it has been 10 years that we talk about online sourcing. Last week in SMX, Chris Sherman’s keynote mentioned the search engine evolution. We are now heading towards search 3.0 (universal search) to 4.0 era (personalized search). Well, the web is now in its 2.0 era and search is moving towards 4.0, what about B2B?
I am as usual surfing different B2B websites everyday, bumping into different conversations with friends inside the B2B circle. I know HKTDC has recently relaunched its website. This is a major revamp and even the domain name is now unified with the brand HKTDC.COM. Another B2B sourcing portal, TRADEEASY.COM, has also relaunched the site, which I find the new TRADEEASY.COM quite good in many aspects. Better usability and the user experience is more intuitive.
When you are navigating on these B2B sourcing portals, they all show you one common characteristic: Search is steering the user experience. Searching, is now the synonym of sourcing.
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Thanks for visiting this weblog. I am a digital marketer based in Hong Kong. After founding a marketing consulting company, merged it with a trade show company, and completed my tenure in 2007, I am blogging my insight and commentary for marketing and entrepreneurial experience. Now I am the Managing Director of 
