How to Start Selling on Alibaba.com

Alibaba.com is the biggest B2B marketplace in the world, so it's as good a place to start as any if you want to connect with other manufacturers and suppliers! You don't need to pay to create an account and start displaying your products, but there are many restrictions on a free seller account. The benefits of a Gold Supplier Membership , which is a paid Alibaba.com membership for best selling experience, will be discussed in a later blog post.

To sell on Alibaba.com, you need to first register for an account. If you haven't already done so, you only need to go to Alibaba.com and click on the sign up/ sign in option. Here's how to start selling on Alibaba.com

1. Sign in to your account.
2. Click on ‘My Alibaba’

3. A new tab will pop up. It’s your seller platform.

4.Hover over the ‘Products’ tab on the left navigation bar, and click on ‘Post Product’.

5.Choose Your Product Category. For this example, we will go for Food & Beverage >> Coffee >> Instant Coffee

6.Click on the category of your choice, and then click on ‘I have read and agree to the following terms’.

7.Enter the basic information for your products. Forms with * icon next to the form field name must be filled in.

You can fill in more information to increase customer trust of your products as well

11. Fill in the Trade Information. This includes setting permission for trade assurance orders, unit types, minimum order quantity (MOQ), Freight on Board (FOB) price, payment options and sample service settings

12.Insert the logistics information. This includes product delivery quantity and estimated time of arrival, supply ability, packaging type and photos.

13. Add your photo products. The pictures should be less than 5MB in size and either in 1:1 ratio or 1.3:1 ratio

14. You can also add a featured product video if it’s relevant to your products/business. The video cannot be longer than 45 seconds. If you have an ad or promotion video, you can add it under ‘Detail Video’

15.You can select a template for your product and edit the details. This includes related products, company background, product descriptions etc. Variety of images is important for this!

16. Last but not least, you can add on any featured custom services & private offer service where relevant.

17. You can check your product information score by clicking on the ‘Click Test’ button at the right side of the screen whenever you have submitted enough information.

18. Check for any product information score item that is not green in color. You can check the details and make relevant changes before you preview and submit your product.

19. Click on ‘Preview’ to see what your product will look like.

20. If everything is alright, just click ‘submit’ and your product will be live! Below is the full-page preview of how you can fill in your product information. Depending on your product/ material type, you might find it relevant to fill in other types of information as well.

21.Below is a reference of how the preview looks like based on what is filled in for the product information

22. Cross check between the form-fill and the preview link to see if there are any areas that you can optimize such as better product photos, product details et cetera.