Small business owners can say open sesame to open the cave of wonders and access Alibaba, the world’s largest marketplace, pairing buyers and sellers on their ecommerce platform. While investors are busy sizing up the potential with Alibaba’s IPO quickly approaching, people across the world are discovering the opportunity for small businesses to leverage the resources and technology that have typically been accessible only by larger companies.
Buying business and production supplies is different from buying shoes at Zappos. There’s simply more to the buying equation. Alibaba offers a variety of ways to find what you need, including a system to post a buying request which is similar to placing a Help Wanted ad for the products you’re looking for. It’s clear that the team behind the Alibaba marketplace truly focused on building a platform with the end user in mind and have covered all the basics like sample requests, financing options and offering solutions for quality control inspections.
To address the needs of people interested in learning how to get started leveraging those resources, we’ve just released a free new elearning course: An Introduction to Buying on Alibaba.com. We see a significant opportunity for small business owners and want to help you navigate Alibaba to maximize the time and savings potential with this new online course.
The course includes a video tour of the Alibaba site where you’ll explore some of the main areas for buyers. You’ll find everything you need to know to get started buying in the Alibaba marketplace today, including how to set up your account, choose the right supplier and finance a purchase.
Get started today and let us know what you think!