There is an interesting fact about Yiwu — “If you stay in front of each booth in the Yiwu International Trade City for three minutes and go shopping for eight hours a day, how long will you take to complete the tour? It will take a year and a half.” The Yiwu market is huge, and there are many small commodities. How to quickly find the products will not only test the buyers’ physical strength but also their brains and eyesight.

The “Benben Looking for Goods” section launched by Chinagoods provides a full range of services for both supply and demand in manufacturing, display transactions, warehousing, and logistics. This enables buyers to find goods in seconds and quickly make the deal. According to statistics, since its launch in March 2022 the Chinagoods platform “Benben Looking for Goods” received an average of 1,200 procurement requests every day. From that, they sourced goods for more than 2,000 purchasers and generated a transaction volume of over 10 million RMB.

To search the Chinagoods platform through the APP on mobile phone or PC, you click to enter the main page and after will find there is a red mascot “Benben” in the upper right corner. This is the “Benben Looking for Goods” section launched by the Yiwu Market. If domestic and overseas buyers register, they can post their request for goods. Up to now, domestic and overseas buyers have released a total of 2,842 requirements, and they have strong purchasing demand for daily necessities, office culture, education, digital home appliances, kitchen and bathroom supplies, and imported goods. These items are mostly concentrated in the first, fourth, and fifth districts of the International Trade City. 

With the continuous upgrading of the “Benben Looking for Goods” section, the 4.1 version of “Benben Looking for Goods” was officially launched at the end of August this year. This especially promoted the introduction of the secondary push module for selecting merchants and the “video display” module to enhance the users’ experience. It further improve the efficiency of finding goods and reduces procurement costs.

In August, the Benben section collected more than 43,000 requirements on procurement, and a total of 2,600 buyers participated in the consultation. 5,500 operators responded to quotations 19,800 times with a response rate of 46%. In August, market operators responded to various activities carried out by Chinagoods and actively offered quotes. According to the statistics, the quotation response in August showed the proportion of frequent quotation operators reached its peak at 61%. Compared with July, it increased by 13 percent.

Buyers looking for goods online has become the norm, and business owners have strong adaptability. In the past two years, under the normalized prevention and control of the pandemic, domestic and foreign trade was inevitably affected. The non-contact online market has become the main battlefield for purchasers and suppliers to communicate and negotiate. The operators of 75,000 booths are slowly adapting to this new shift in procurement.

In late August, Ambesikhaya Ngobo, a South African buyer, posted his procurement requirements on the Benben platform. After a manual review on his requirements, 240 merchants in the corresponding categories were accurately recommended.

“In the past, when we were looking for a product for a customer, our purchasers would go door-to-door to find the market entities and ask for the price samples. It required a commitment of time and energy to find the product,” Bi Fuxia said. But now, as one of the first batches of products for foreign trade companies using Chinagoods, the company salesman merely needs to post the inquiry information in “Benben looking for goods,” and it will be accurately introduced to more than 200 merchants in the corresponding category. This makes the tedious search easier, convenient, and precise. (Text and photos by Wu Fengyu, translated by Zhang Jiajia, edited by Daniel Haws)