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DHgate Brings Back The American Dream - Via China

2009-05-05 19:47 1466

E-commerce visionary plans to make international business as easy as ordering from Amazon

BEIJING, May 5 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- DHgate.com, the B2B e-Commerce website that has served Chinese sellers and global buyers since 2004, today announced plans to return America's high-streets to their small businesses, away from the oligarchy of massive retail chains like Wal-Mart. CEO Diane Wang and her 300-strong following have forged themselves into a focused, disciplined unit since DHgate's inception and are optimistic about their chances of overthrowing the "insidious tyranny".

"Over the last three decades, big-box retailers have convinced Americans that we have a choice: either we can have everyday low prices, or we can have vibrant, personalized, attentive, caring, and unique retail experiences," says Wang, President and CEO of DHgate.com. "That's a false choice, and our goal is to help Americans take back their streets from the retail oligarchs."

Why this quest?

"What makes America distinctive and powerful is not bombers, tanks, or aircraft carriers," Wang says. "It is not even the New York Stock Exchange. What makes America exceptional in the world and what keeps it a beacon today is that a man or a woman, fed up with having to work for a living wage, can start a business with his or her own two hands and make a better life.

"At the heart of that is small retailing, selling something you are passionate about to others who are passionate about it. The technology

start-ups may get all the media coverage, but most small businesses find success buying with care and selling with passion."

Inspired by America as a nation of mom-and-pop stores and excited at the promise of technology, Wang created Joyo.com in 1999 to put the fun back into bookselling in a country where enthusiasm and excitement had been drained from the bookstores themselves. She sold Joyo to Amazon.com in 2003, but quickly saw that the warm, quaint shopping streets of America -- and the idea that retail could be a path to independence -- were dying, victims of what others had begun to call "The Wal-Mart Effect".

"I woke up one day struck by the realization that I understood not only how the big-box retailers and the likes had done it, but also how I could help the little guy fight back."

Wang started DHgate to help revive and rejuvenate small retailers and wholesalers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, armed with the understanding that, done right, e-commerce could level the playing field between the smallest businesses and the largest. With a perspective that covered both the sourcing side and the selling side, she knew that what turned the big boys from large retailers that could share the mall with their smaller cousins into the massive mom-and-pop killers that they are today was the supply chain.

"Big-box retailers created this mystique around being frugal, and the message was that because they didn't have fancy offices or perks or stores, they were able to pass the savings onto the customer," Wang continued. "Today, we know that was not the whole truth."

The real difference, as Wang sees it, is that the world's larger retailers had the resources to send people on worldwide product hunts, buy the goods from the lowest cost provider, and import them. The little store had to depend on middlemen and long supply chains of distributors, limiting their selection and raising their costs. Equally frustrating for small businesses was the web of arcane practices, documents, and jargon that have grown up around international business that have made buying from overseas complex, time-consuming, and costly.

"The more you look at the international trade system, the more you start to think that globalization might have been specifically designed to keep small businesses out," Wang argues. "That was the problem that needed fixing."

Armed with her knowledge of China and her experience with e-commerce, Wang pulled together a team to build a website that would give every small business -- no matter its size -- access to the power of a global supply chain. But she knew that in order to be successful, she had to drag the entire system of international commerce into the 21st century, making it more user-friendly in the process.

The goal with DHgate was simple: make it as easy for a small business to buy products from overseas as it is for a consumer to buy a book from Amazon. Development of the platform is coming together faster than expected with over 300,000 suppliers having already signed up, listing 11,000 products across 4,000 different categories. The Company has put together agreements with shipping companies to aggregate business and drive down the cost of getting products to buyers in the U.S., and has worked with PayPal and other partners to build a proprietary escrow payment system that protects both buyers and sellers alike.

Both parties are also required to rate each other upon completion of each transaction, ensuring that people can find the most service-oriented suppliers through their ratings. And for those rare occasions that disputes arise, DHgate even built an easy-to-use, multilayer dispute resolution system designed to protect everyone's interests.

"We are making buying direct from manufacturers overseas safe, efficient, and even easier than ordering from a local distributor," Wang says. "And we are making this happen at a time when America is turning to small businesses to put the economy back on track."

And that, according to Wang, is what keeps her team energized. "The world needs the American Dream, and our job is to bring that dream to life, one small business at a time."

Source: DHgate.com
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