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First of all, I live in China (Beijing). Alibaba is mostly a C2C (or at most C2B) platform and is the method offered to foreign countries. It started as a way,

by gbraad 14y ago

First of all, I live in China (Beijing). Alibaba is mostly a C2C (or at most C2B) platform and is the method offered to foreign countries. It started as a way, similar to eBay, to sell your 'Buy now' products (called Taobao), however it easily enabled small 'business' to establish; individuals started to resell products and act as agents for the factories. It is much harder to deal with the factory yourself. First of all, the quantities you have to buy are MUCH higer before they even wanna deal with you. Chinese agents mostly can get small quantities. Also, there is a language barrier. English language level is not really high, especially in the area where manufacturing happens. it is really YMMV... they often are not much better than the agents.. From what you tell here, it seems you are dealing with a good agent. About the original article. What do they mean with 'safer' ? Security? Honesty?

dwshorowitz 14y ago
gbraad, thanks very much for your insights! Your assessment of Alibaba.com's international marketplace is spot on. Here's what we mean by 'safer'; our competing B2B International Marketplace (soon to be branded) is an integrated ecosystem of logistics service providers (neutral 3rd party logistics warehouses), suppliers and buyers. Our inspection, inventory management, and distribution management suite allows for real-time visibility (http://www.hdtradeservices.com/distributor.php#inspection http://www.hdtradeservices.com/distributor.php#inspection), and facilitates a hyper-proactive approach to purchasing. The result is an unprecedented level of transparency and security when sourcing, as you can verify quality before your goods are paid for and shipped. Further, all suppliers on our platform will be rigorously vetted, and monitored via our inspection service. I hope this helps answer your question.
- Evbn 14y ago
  I think you hid an answer somewhere in their, bit it is buried in advertising puffery and pablum.

by gbraad 14y ago

dwshorowitz 14y ago

gbraad, thanks very much for your insights! Your assessment of Alibaba.com's international marketplace is spot on. Here's what we mean by 'safer'; our competing B2B International Marketplace (soon to be branded) is an integrated ecosystem of logistics service providers (neutral 3rd party logistics warehouses), suppliers and buyers. Our inspection, inventory management, and distribution management suite allows for real-time visibility (http://www.hdtradeservices.com/distributor.php#inspection http://www.hdtradeservices.com/distributor.php#inspection), and facilitates a hyper-proactive approach to purchasing. The result is an unprecedented level of transparency and security when sourcing, as you can verify quality before your goods are paid for and shipped. Further, all suppliers on our platform will be rigorously vetted, and monitored via our inspection service. I hope this helps answer your question.

Evbn 14y ago
I think you hid an answer somewhere in their, bit it is buried in advertising puffery and pablum.