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.

The next step, if you are using Boxedup to source products, is to go into your profile and ensure that your list isnt visible to anybody but yourself. This way you can be sure that you wont tip off competitors or potential customers about an item you intend to source from China.

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 use Boxedup serves is that it could potentially play a powerful part in marketing promotion due to its function as a social networking site. Many of the sales users make is based on the choices that are being made by people with similar tastes to them.

This can be used by adding items you want to sell more of on the things I want list and then adding it on your main website. This acts as a staff recommendations box and increase the chance of customers purchasing one particular item. Your list can also be left online left as free targeted marketing towards people more likely to buy than regular netizines.

The China Sourcing and online marketing capabilities of Boxedup are too huge not to be ignored. Check out the site today and start your involvement in the Web 2.0 internet.

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.

MORE iNFO

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Online marketing is a vital component of your overall marketing
effort. It is easy to see how more than any other form of
advertisement that is done in the real world it is the virtual world
that can have a huge impact:

Billboards are seen by those who drive by and may not be properly
perceived at all, since many of the drivers will not have the time to
peruse the information you are giving.

Unless you have an easy to remember phone number or web address,
you may not profit from your billboards and other ads since most
drivers will not jot down any information while they are
driving.Billboards may become defaced whereas the web content is
always crisp and clear and visible 24 hours a day.

Yet in spite of the many advantages that online marketing offers to
your business, the mere thought of outsourcing your online marketing
may still give you the heebie-jeebies. The notion of handing control
of an entire segment of your marketing effort to a third party might
not sit well with you and additionally the fact that you will not only
lose control but also will have to entrust a third party with
potentially sensitive materials creates a problem in the minds of many
business owners.

When outsourcing your online marketing is not your first choice,
hiring experienced marketing professionals is an attractive solution
to your quandary. Here are some things to consider as you make the
decision of hiring a marketing expert versus outsourcing your online
marketing altogether:

While hiring an expert will cost you money in salary and also
benefits, outsourcing will cost you money coming from your advertising
budget. Both avenues have drawbacks. An employee will be a monthly
financial draw while an outsourcer will come with a big up front
investment. There are no guarantees tied to either expenditure, but
terminating an employee who is not performing in accordance with your
expectations and handing the reigns over to another employee is easier
than switching marketing companies.

Hiring on an online marketing expert does not have to be expensive. In
some cases a freelancer, telecommuter, or even advanced student will
be happy to take on the challenge for the pay as well as the
opportunity to bolster her or his portfolio.

Utilizing an experienced online marketing outsourcer who is well known
in the industry will heighten your odds of having an online campaign
designed that will be successful.

Keeping your online marketing in-house will permit you to retain a lot
of control over the image that is projected online about your company.
Yet this very aspect of control may prove detrimental if you are not
known as a risk taker and your consistent conservatism is holding back
your company. By outsourcing your online marketing you are allowing
someone else to take the reigns and literally take the company places
where you would have never dreamed it could – or should – go in the
first place.

Web banners are to Internet marketing what billboards are to the
highway leading from California to Las Vegas – indispensable. There is
probably nary a website in existence that does not feature at least
one but usually a whole host of web banner ads. Yet not all banner ads
are created equal and while some a witty and creative, others are
annoying at best and offensive at worst. When a banner ad makes you
regret an online marketing outsourcing decision you might have made to
increase the number of qualified leads for your business, you know
that your company might not be represented in the best light
possible.

By and large, a web banner may be little more than a static graphic
that will depict either your product or a hint toward the product you
provide, perhaps the name of your business, a company symbol or
trademarked sign, and of course link back to your company or a
product. Yet in an effort to capture the attention of the web surfing
public, banner ad creators and promoters have taken the craft to new
heights, and in some cases new lows. When a banner ad created for your
company makes you regret you decision to hand over control over this
aspect of your marketing campaign to a third party, any one of the
following may be true:

You may have received adverse correspondence from consumers who
state that your banners are too big and therefore make a webpage
load slower.An overeager ad exec may have decided to make your
ad part of a pop up or pop under, which effectively gests lost
because pop up blockers are now standard software on most
machines. A live banner you are running does not update properly.

Your ad campaign includes the use of a hover ad which causes your
business to be excluded from advertising on large social network
sites, thus potentially costing you tens of thousands of qualified
leads.

Any and all of these events will most likely make you regret the day
that you handed over the reigns of your online marketing division to a
third party. Fortunately, there are several steps you can take prior
to finding yourself in this predicament! First and foremost, consider
co-sourcing rather than outsourcing your online marketing. While this
has the potential to backfire, it also has the potential to avoid
embarrassing and annoying promotion snafus.

Similarly, if you do decide to outsource your Internet marketing, make
sure you ask for examples of various ad campaigns the company has run
before. This will permit you to sample the work and also give you the
opportunity to see if this kind of marketing effort is generally
viewed as positive or negative by the public. Since pop ups are
primarily viewed as negative, therefore, you will know not to sign on
with a professional marketing outfit that relies heavily on that kind
of banner ad campaign to create the qualified leads you are looking
for.

In recent years outsourcing has become a buzz words that has left many companies in a bit of dire straits – on the one hand they are saving money hand over fist, but on the other hand their reputation is being damaged to such an extent that the money they are spending of fixing the damage is equal to, and in some cases more, than they are actually saving. Understanding the pitfalls of outsourcing your Internet marketing will help you to make the best decision possible for your company’s presence as well as its future.

For example, the public outcry that might accompany your outsourcing the Internet marketing function may be severe. If you have to lay off employees, the adverse public reaction will be higher than if you are able to shift those employees to other departments, in which case the outcry might be non-existent. On the other hand, even if you are able to keep on all employees, if you take your Internet marketing operation and move it off shore, you will most likely be on the receiving end of a public backlash from which your business may suffer a rather substantial hit.

Another pitfall that might make the idea of a public backlash pale in comparison is the failure to account for a difference in language use. Since any Internet marketing you send off shore is most likely being done in the language of the country where the business ends up, the possibility of word use and terminology that could be considered offensive in this country is high. Add to this that in many other countries political correctness is not a term that is followed to the extent that the United States does, the ability to offend entire segments of a population based on religious, ethnic, cultural or gender specific bases is likely. Once your company’s name is associated with such an offense, unintended though it may be, it is very hard to extricate your business from this negative publicity and it will live on indefinitely on the Internet.

Failure to protect your company by having an ironclad contractual agreement with the company who will receive your outsourced Internet marketing operation is another pitfall that must be avoided. In some cases the failure to spell out exactly what the financial remuneration will be has led to the generation of false leads by unethical independent contractors utilized by the Internet marketing company. These false leads cost you a significant amount of money and you will receive nothing in return. Similarly, if you include email marketing to your ‘Net marketing portfolio, the danger of becoming associated with a company that might SPAM in order to garner a bit of profit is very high. Being associated with such a marketing effort will have a highly negative effect for your company’s name and reputation and while the ability to point fingers at another company may seem petty, the fact that you will be able to mitigate financial damages this way will come in handy in the short run. Unfortunately, in the long run it will stain your company’s status.

Possibly the biggest pitfall you need to be aware of when outsourcing your Internet marketing rests in the fact that you might experience a case of “guilt by association.” This may happen if your ads are displayed on web pages that offer questionable or even illegal content.