Alibaba is the most popular destination for online shopping, in the world’s fastest growing e-commerce market. We have a post here to guide you on how to locate Alibaba agents in South Africa. Again, we are going to guide you on how an Alibaba agent can optimize his or her business sourcing.
Who knows, you may end up becoming an Alibaba agent in South Africa after going through this post. You can make more money from this. Therefore pay close attention to the instructions in this post.
About Alibaba
Let’s begin with Alibaba Group. Alibaba Group Holding Limited was founded on the 28th June, 1999 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang — China. The company renders consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sales services thru web portals, as well as electronic payment services, shopping search engines, and cloud computing services.
Alibaba is one of the largest retailers and e-commerce companies in the world. In 2020, Alibaba was rated as the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company in the world.
Again, it is one of the world’s biggest venture capital firms and investment corporations.
Also, Alibaba is one of the second largest financial services group. As mentioned earlier, Alibaba hosts the largest B2B (Alibaba.com), C2C (Taobao), and B2C (Tmall) marketplaces in the world.
Alibaba Agents In South Africa
Who Is An Alibaba Agent?
In terms of product sourcing in China from South Africa, Alibaba.com is the ideal place where businesses usually turn to. It is a great site where you can locate millions of products and manufacturers in China to help scale up your business.
A representative who acts on behalf of other persons or organizations is known as an agent. With the assistance of an Alibaba Agent in South Africa, you can get the most out of this amazing online shopping site. Let’s see how to go about that.
How Does Alibaba Agents Work?
Alibaba links buyers with suppliers across the world and retains more than 50% of the total e-commerce sales in China. We are going to show you how to buy from Alibaba thru Alibaba agent.
How To Begin Alibaba
First of all, follow the guide to comprehend how to buy from Alibaba.
1. Create an account on Alibaba – This will grant you a user ID and a password.
2. Look for the desired products you want to buy. After, look for the most credible product manufacturer, which will be available in two forms:
Factories: these are the exact producers of the products, and the factory sales team is linked with the retailers on Alibaba.
Trading Companies: these are the middlemen that sources out products from factories and then sells them on Alibaba.
How To Source Products On Alibaba
A very vital point to consider is where to source your products from. For a reasonable decision of product sourcing, the buyers should base their judgements on the following conditions:
- Select products that will be easy to ship
- Perform the available product sourcing
- The availability of the products should have cost-effective rates for gaining more profit.
- The quality of the products must be maintained.
- The manufacturer should be capable of scaling up the supply with the growth of the business.
What To Consider Before You Begin To Buy A Product On Alibaba
There are two things you must consider and these are:
The Price Of Product And FOB
As you buy from Alibaba, the main thing you need to consider is the price of the product and the Free On Board (FOB) option. FOB implies: the seller will ship the package to the marine port for free, and the buyer will have to pay only for the transport charges from port to the final destination.
The Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) Of Products
Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) is the minimum amount of order a supplier at Alibaba can deliver to the buyer.
How To Pay On Alibaba
When you are done with the MOQ and the price of the product, the next vital step is to choose the payment method to further proceed with the Alibaba order. Here are the best payment methods available:
- Upfront TT (Bank Transfer) Method
- Letter of Credit (LOC)
- Western Union
- PayPal
- Escrow
NB: Obtain enough knowledge about the above payment methods before you proceed with the payment for goods or products on Alibaba.
For further questions about this subject, reach us via the comments section.