So the new Standard and Basic Membership system went live at the end of last month. Whew!!! It has been such a stressful time, so much to take care of!

Happily it went without a hitch and the number of Standard members is rising (more slowly than we would have hoped but we’ll give it time).

Just to recap on the differences, Standard members (they pay a small membership fee) can post up to 50 Sell Trade Leads, 50 Products, unlimited Buy Trade Leads and unlimited Partner Trade Leads, have an extended company profile including more contact details. They can also post Documents and appear higher in lists and search results. It all serves to make their company and products a lot more visible to Buyers and, we all hope, will help increase the volume of international trade these members enjoy.

For the time being Basic members can post 2 Sell Leads, 1 Partner Trade Lead, Unlimited Buy Trade Leads, 2 Products and a Company Profile. This subscription level is free and is really aimed at Buyers.

Those of you who are considering subscribing might be interested to know we’re running a promotion until the end of this month - 33% off the first quarter’s membership fees!

We’re looking forward to the introduction of subscriptions on the trade portal later on next month. Subscriptions will mean we’ll be able to offer members an improved service.

There are to be two categories of members - Basic and Standard.

Standard members, who will pay a fairly small subscription to use our services, will be able to post more trade leads and products than is possible at the moment and there will be a range of other features designed to improve the marketing of their companies and products.

Basic membership is free and is meant for people who haven’t used the site before and want to give it a try before committing and also for people who only want to submit ‘Buy’ trade leads. Basic members will have access to a limited range of the site’s facilities.

The latest changes are up and most of you will be pleased to be able to market your products at last. We know you’re limited to only 2 products at the moment but eventually more will be allowed on a subscription basis.

Both company profiles and products have to be approved before they go up (like Buy and Partner leads). This is to stop people spamming with inappropriate information. We should really extend this to Sell leads as well - hopefully if/when we get more staff.

It’s nice to see that most people are submitting images with their products - here’s an interesting one: Green Life Mud Crabs, submitted by liveseafoodpng who is based in Papua New Guinea.

Apparently Papua New Guinea is one of the most diverse countries on the planet with over 850 languages - the population is under 6,000,000!!!

The country’s exports include a variety of minerals (oil, gold, copper), timber, agricultural product (palm oil, yams, coffee, cocoa) and, as liveseafoodpng has shown, fish products. Machinery, chemicals and manufactured goods are amongst their main imports.

We’ve been working very hard over the past two month on a number of changes to the site, especially the trade portal.

Amongst other things, many people have requested better product marketing, product search and company search facilities as well. 

We’re happy to announce your wishes are about to be granted!

The product and company updates will be rolled out in the coming weeks - expect a little down time - with more new features to come. 

So watch this space!

Why are there always people who think the best way to increase their sales is by spamming the board?

You know, the sort that act like they don’t know where to post their trade leads - posting Sell Leads on the Buy pages, filling their posts with urls to their sites, putting their site urls in the subject field.

Well the first is a waste of time on our trade portal (because Buy and Partner trade leads have to be approved) and the other spamming techniques will only scare potential buyers off. Why? Because Buyers will only do business with those they can trust.

If you want to start building that trust you’ll have to put away the spam and:

• Behave in a responsible and professional manner
• Be ready to produce references
• Show you have a reputable business
• Show evidence of your time in business
• Show you have high quality products to sell
• Show you have the processes in place for dealing with international markets