subject: Find Trade Leads In Latin America And The Caribbean [print this page] Companies around the world most probably share one thing in common: they do not have distribution channels in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is a golden opportunity as the region represents 42 countries and 609 million potential customers.
The obstacles for doing business:
*Language barriers: Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the most diverse regions in the world. Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Creole and many more languages are spoken.
*Lack of online information: Ever tried to find online information about doing business in Latin America? You probably had the same frustration as a lot of business people looking to invest in this region. The information is either in Spanish, the websites are old, not updated with the latest information and not user friendly .
*Hard to find Trade leads from companies. Trade Leads are basically buying and selling offers. These offers are usually published online on B2B Trade Portals in order to help connect buyers and sellers from all over the world. The Asians are the leaders of B2B Trade portals with successful websites such as Alibaba, Tradekey, EC21 etc.
How to start doing business with Latin America and the Caribbean?
Finally, I found a serious, well designed and easy to use B2B Trade Portal for Latin America and the Caribbean. MercaTrade.com started back in 2009 and already has over one thousand trade leads.
Several things I like about this website:
*MercaTrade.com is available in both English and Spanish.
*The website is simply designed and easy to navigate. It does not have advertising flashing everywhere which I hate in other websites.
*The prices are quite reasonable as well. With their PowerTrader virtual showroom, users can enter unlimited selling and buying offers with pictures, display up to date company news, communicate Tradeshow attendance and much more. The price is $500.00USD/year which is quite good as I would pay at least five times that on other B2B Trade Portals.
*If you don't have a money to spend right now, you can still post your offers for FREE. You have some limitations of course but this is a great start.
*Good news. They are adding several more features in 2010 at no additional cost to current premium members.
*A wealth of business resources such as etiquette, trade information about each country, trade agreements etc.
*There are other services like translation which is always useful when entering new markets.
