AliBaba Suggestions
An 1102 student has made the following suggestions for using AliBaba for getting manufacturing costs, I will summarize below:
- AliBaba is probably the most useful tool we as a group have come across as of yet. There are so many more companies there than on Thomas Register.
- I would suggest not using your cellphone _*number like I have because I have probably received 15-20 phone calls from Vietnam / China / Los Angeles in the past 36 hours.
These were not made by companies I contacted but by others trying to sell their services to me.
- *_TradeManager, AliBaba’s instant messaging service works great_*. If you leave it open, you will find that as long as you describe what you are looking for in your profile and correctly select an appropriate industry, even people that you have not contacted will message you and try to offer their services.
- It worked best to use the Contact Now option on AliBaba and send an email first,_ then the people working for those companies will promptly respond. The only downside is that this primarily happens around 8-12 at night because of the time difference since these are primarily Chinese companies. Try not to be too specific because a lot of things you say get lost in translation, and regardless of whether or not the company can offer you exactly what you are looking for, they will respond.
- Once you get them on TradeManager though, you will be able to find out specifically.