Alibaba.com Limited (HKSE: 1688) (1688.HK), the world's leading small business e-commerce company, hosted an offline sourcing event in New Delhi this week to provide small Indian suppliers with an opportunity to connect with EUROGROUP, one of the largest buying offices in Asia for four leading retailers from Europe including Rewe Group (a leading retailer in the German-speaking regions of Europe), bauMax (a leading retailer in Eastern Europe), Coop (the second largest retailer in Switzerland) and Rautakesko (the largest building and home improvement products supplier in the Nordic and Baltic countries). The event was attended by about 60 Alibaba.com Gold Supplier customers in India from across sectors such as household products, garden tools, granite tiles, electronics items, and food and personal care products.
Held from 28-29 June, the two-day sourcing event aimed to promote made-in-India products to the European market by connecting high-quality Indian suppliers directly to EUROGROUP, which represents some of the largest European retailers which together have a customer reach of 38 million people spanning Central Europe, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia.
Through the supplier orientation session and networking session organised by Alibaba.com on day one, the attending suppliers were given an opportunity to gain first-hand information about the buyer, the global sourcing trends and various export markets. Thirty attendants from 20 companies were also pre-selected to present their products to the buyer at the one-on-one meetings on day two of the event.
"This is the first time that Alibaba.com has held an offline sourcing event in India after we recognised the need of Indian suppliers to interact with prospective customers globally," said Vincent Wong, Senior Director of Buyer Service and Development, Alibaba.com. "These buyers are looking for high-quality and competitively priced products. We believe that Indian small businesses have the capabilities to meet the exacting global standards and we are keen to provide our Indian members with the ideal platform to network and conduct business with large buyers from around the world. Private sourcing events, such as this, bring international business opportunities to the doorstep of Indian small businesses," he concluded.
"We want to expand our supplier base to bring more innovative products to our customers. India has emerged as a leading supplier market and the appreciating Chinese Yuan and increasing labour cost in China are giving Indian suppliers an added advantage," said Robert Kronhofer, Deputy Managing Director, EUROGROUP Far East Ltd. "I am delighted to be invited by Alibaba.com to India to meet with so many quality Indian suppliers. Our first sourcing event here has proved to be well organized, thanks to the months of hard work and effective supplier pre-selection by both EUROGROUP and Alibaba.com teams. The Alibaba.com team also did a very good job in educating our potential suppliers on day one of the event, which made them better prepared for meeting with our representatives on the following day."
"I am happy to see such a serious private sourcing event conducted in India. It's a unique concept from Alibaba.com for they are the first e-commerce company to educate suppliers about certification and compliance and share with us other tips on working with big buyers like EUROGROUP. The face-to-face meeting with the buyer also gave us a valuable opportunity to showcase our samples and understand our buyer's requirements better. We would not have been able to do that had we not been an Alibaba.com member. We look forward to more similar events from Alibaba.com in the future," said Imran Shamsi from New Direction Inc., Moradabad, one of the participating suppliers.
The event was an initiative of Alibaba.com's Buyer Service and Development team, which caters specifically to big corporations with large-scale procurement needs such as P&G, Wal-Mart and Woolworths Australia. The team provides those big buyers with a myriad of services and user-friendly tools ranging from online supplier matching to online promotion, sourcing training and customized private sourcing events.
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