IPO In China: Made-In-China.com President Joseph Wong (Part 2)

SM: Was your strategy to consolidate Chinese exporters on one side and worldwide importers on the other side and then let them connect through your Web services?

JW: Yes. The idea was to put suppliers and buyers on a single site so that they could meet.

SM: Were the importers from all over the world or primarily from the United States?

JW: The buyers on our site are importers of Chinese products. They come from all over the world, but yes the majority of them do come from the United States and Europe. They account for over 50% of our total buyer memberships.

SM: What kinds of products are exporters offering through your site? What are the most popular products represented on your exchange?

JW: Our website contains a very large variety of products. Electrical and electronics products as well as mechanical and machinery products are very popular. Those are definitely two of the most popular categories on our website.

SM: When did the Made-In-China.com site begin to generate revenue?

JW: We have had some very small income from the site since 2002, but we generally consider 2004 to be the year when we generated our initial revenue. We became profitable in 2004.

SM: What are the revenue numbers on which you became profitable in 2004?

JW: In 2004 we had about $600,000.

SM: When you started actually doing this exchange, I can understand that you found exporters from your current clients from your Web hosting business. What I am interested in understanding is how you recruited the importers from around the world.

JW: We did a lot of online and offline promotions. We participated in the largest and most famous export fair in China. We also attended a lot of exhibitions and trade fairs around the world to introduce the sites to buyers. We also put a lot of resources into studying search engine optimization. We invested heavily in online advertising to allow people who were searching for a business like ours to find us through targeted keywords.

This segment is part 2 in the series : IPO In China: Made-In-China.com President Joseph Wong
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