So your China product sourcing mission is turning into a disaster... There seems to be double the number of companies out there to source from and triple the number of products. You're pretty sure you've 'found' and noted down the same product three times, and you have no idea which company several of the products you have decided to take a closer look at came from.
One option you could consider is Boxedup.com a 2.0 website designed to help people shop on the internet.
While it is primarily aimed at the end user market Boxedup.com presents some pretty powerful functions that could benefit eBay traders and online shop vendors who do China sourcing, particularly when it comes to sourcing and marketing.
So what is boxedup anyway and what does it have to do with product sourcing?
Boxedup is an internet service which makes it easy for users to make lists of the things they want to get online.
There is also a social element added in with users being able to see what each person wants and has, as well as making friends and sending messages.
Initially being formed as gifttagging.com, before being changed to Boxedup.com at the start of this year, the site's ease of use and intuitive usability have made this website popular with the web 2.0 crowd who are more than interested in keeping everybody up to date about everything that is happening in their lives.
However, the program's ability to easily lift pictures, the product location and product name off the website make it a potentially valuable tool for people sourcing Chinese products, especially as the person making the list can state how many, or how few, people see the lists.
Like any web 2.0 application designed for general use the program takes very little to install.
It simply requires you to sign up to the service, after which you will be taken to a page where you are given the option of downloading the buttons for Internet Explorer or dragging buttons up to your shortcut bar if you are using Firefox.
Once you have signed onto the service and installed the buttons you should have no problems adding products to your list.
Before you go back to sourcing products it might pay to go to your account and make sure the button on the right-hand side of the site used select how visible your selections are is set to private to ensure nobody else sees the items you select.
When you find a product you just click on the ‘add to Boxedup' button. The application will then scrape the website address, product photos and product name of the page and take you to another page where you enter in a description, some tags to remind you why you think you liked it and the products price.
Once this is done all you need to do is click the submit button and your product ideas will be stored in a list which will show you the price, the website it came from, a photo and a description at the touch of a button.
Boxedup could also potentially be useful as a guide of what items you should be searching for.
Another use Boxedup serves is that it could potentially play a powerful part in marketing promotion due to its function as a social networking site. Many of the sales users make is based on the choices that are being made by people with similar tastes to them.
This can be used by adding items you want to sell more of on the ‘things I want’ list and then adding it on your main website. This acts as a ‘staff recommendations’ box and increase the chance of customers purchasing one particular item. Your list can also be left online left as free targeted marketing towards people more likely to buy than regular netizines.
The China Sourcing and online marketing capabilities of Boxedup are too huge not to be ignored. Check out the site today and start your involvement in the Web 2.0 internet.
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Find out the top mistakes new importers make when sourcing from China - visit http://www.chinavasion.com today to get YOUR free online course.
Rose Li is the PR Manager for Chinavasion... the premier source of information on importing wholesale electronics from China.
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