Sourcing From China? Get Your Idea Lists In Order

Chinese manufacturing companies have cropped up everywhere online, increasing the number of potential revenue streams for online traders but making the selection job more complex and time consuming. So what steps can you take to reduce the time you spend sourcing and guarantee that you dont lose the products that you want in a mountain of note paper?

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 powerful function Boxedup could play is in site and marketing promotion due to its function as a social networking site.

One of the functions of Boxedup is as a social networking site where people often make purchase decisions on items other people have, so toget program users buying your products and visiting your page all you need to do is to put several items that you have that you want to market onto the things I want category. This can then be displayed on your site as a flash widget to act as astaff pick promotion while also been left in the public eye on the main site, which essentially works as free targeted advertising, drawing people you your website that you know are more likely to buy.

Dont delay. The China sourcing and marketing opportunities combined wishlist, social networking sites like Boxedup offer are huge and worth exploring today.

Rose Li is the PR Manager for Chinavasion.com. Chinavasion.com is the world's leading online drop ship wholesaler for MP4 players and other consumer electronics. Accredited by Validated Site, ScanAlert, and Verisign, and listed in all the leading B2B directories, Chinavasion.com is the market leading online wholesale electronics shop for eBay dropship sellers and importers worldwide. For more details visit: http://www.chinavasion.com/ or see what products Chinavasion staff think are worthwhile at http://www.boxedup.com/chinavasion from China Electronics.