According to the latest statistics released by the WTO, China's exports accounted for 9.6 percent of the global total in 2009, up from the previous year's 8.9%, enabling China to replace Germany as the world's largest exporter. E-commerce, which can break the barriers of distance, language, time and cost, is playing an important role in driving the exports of Asian products, made-in-China ones in particular which are gaining increasing popularity.
Globally speaking, the core strength of e-commerce lies in its price. Higher inventory turnover rate and lower operating cost is a unique advantage against the traditional store channel. However, in the arena of international trade, price is only one side of the coin, with the other side being the competition in integrity.
For many international buyers, they would rather pay a higher price than receive fake goods or nothing for their money.
E-commerce is a solution to the long-standing issue of information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, however it also lead to a new issue: excessive options make it difficult for the buyers to make choice. Is it safe to identify the best sellers by their gold and platinum titles or high rankings? The answer is negative. The reason is that the titles and rankings can be purchased from the e-commerce website managers. In this case, the buyers are pushed into a passive position, doubting whether they can buy the best goods and fearing that they may be cheated by the buyers.
The existing traditional e-commerce modes, namely B2B and B2C, are catering for those members who have a strong financial strength and wish to spend money on high rankings, while these modes also tend imply that the best ranked suppliers are the strongest, assuming a definite relationship between money spent by the suppliers and their qualifications. However it is not the situation to the buyers' expectation.
Then how can we achieve a win-win situation where the e-commerce platform not only helps the buyers purchase in an easy and efficient way, but also helps them locate the best products?
Now, TradeTuber, an electronic supplier community using an integrity index (the basis for result rankings and exposure), is emerging from Asia. Whether it is able to provide a better platform for the buyers and sellers is yet to see, however, it is certain that TradeTuber overtakes the traditional e-commerce websites as it puts emphasis on integrity for the development of its website. It aims to create an online commerce environment of safety, fairness and integrity. Through this community, the buyers can easily find suppliers with the industry's most popular products, while the risk of cheating is significantly reduced due to the integrity index mechanism. The index is based on five criteria, namely the certification of a third-party organization recognized by the international buyers, visitor traffic of their products on the website, comments of their peers and buyers, quantity of buyer inquiries and the matching degree of their key words. It is clear that the index puts premier suppliers at the top of the list through an objective selection and judgment based on the online community's opinions. It provides convenience for the buyers and enhances the efficiency of their cooperation. On the other hand, the website also divides the buyers into general buyers and VIP buyers (who submit their past purchase record) to give the suppliers an idea of the buyers' intent and needs.
In less than one year, TradeTuber (www.tradetuber.com) has built up a community of over 5,000 VIP buyers and over 1,000 quality suppliers, with its popularity and recognition on the increase.
In the 21st century, integrity as the basic quality of a merchant shall be valued as much as talent. We hope to see more integrity-oriented online trade platforms like TradeTuber to drive a healthy growth of the e-commerce sector.
Contacts:
TradeTuber
Ada Chu, (86) 755 8337 8025
media@tradetuber.com