Alibaba.com e-Business of the Year 2008 - Mr. Ansif Asharaf

Our company believes in a motto “Business can’t survive where there is no trust”. Through the Alibaba.com B2B website we contacted many suppliers and buyers who are gold members and all their feedbacks were genuine. We build up trust with suppliers in Alibaba.com who are gold members and Trust Pass members even with our eyes closed. The quality never concerns the gold members and the shipments were prompt and on time. The suppliers had never defaulted the contracts even when the prices were going up and down. We were able to build a long time co-operation in China with companies like SINOPEC, SINOCHEM, LIXIN, ZHIXIN etc. We have built a very large customer base in China and around the world which is trustworthy and priceless through Alibaba.com.

We sell our rubber within India and to Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Industry players know our company well and get references about us. We always follow up our orders to customers with a phone call after sending e-mails to them. We believe giving good service and building trust is important to us. Samples are sent free of charge to customers. We also provide technical support to our customers.

To give an example, we informed our customer, Mr James from Qingdao Int’l Rubber Exchange Market (QinRex) which is a trading exchange and leading importer of rubber that the prices of the rubber market will go down in 2 hours. The rubber prices went down in the next 2 hours indeed. This gained the trust of the customer who believed and trusted the company’s comments and rubber expertise. Accurate information helps our clients place orders and make the right decision. I could have sold the goods at a higher price but I told the customer to wait. We want to win customers’ trust instead of making profits at their expense.

The applications and services offered by Alibaba.com for business and e-commerce are very user-friendly. The dynamic pages and product display supported by Alibaba.com should be well appreciated. The instant messenger and chat facility motivates the business and helps save a lot of time. The e-commerce support and discussions offered are also very supportive and instant delivery of message for quotes are to be well appreciated and it is dynamic.

We use Trade Manger of Alibaba.com which allows us to contact suppliers and buyers promptly. We used to send faxes to ask for quotation but now, the process is much faster through e-mails. We get prompt reply through communication by TradeManager and e-mail. Communication is fast. We have voice conversation with our clients. This allows us to market our goods to customers and get immediate response on stock commodity prices. It saves both time and money.

I started my career as a photographer in 2002. I was looking for color printer cartridges on the Internet and found Alibaba.com. I contacted many suppliers in China and started my business slowly. Later, I started doing trading and got into the rubber industry. I founded my company, Paradise International (India), in 2003 at the age of 20 with only US$100. We are now one of the biggest domestic suppliers and exporters of natural rubber in India from a humble beginning of a small rubber dealer. We import natural rubber from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Vietnam and supply them to the domestic Indian market and foreign markets. We have built good co-operation relationship with China companies like SINOCHEM, SINOPEC and QinRex. I also have two joint ventures in China. My biggest achievement has been starting out as a photographer to become a trader in the rubber industry. I have now opened another company in Hong Kong (Paradise Industries Limited) with sales representative offices in Shanghai and Pakistan. We also have a new joint venture in Sri Lanka for exporting rubber. We hope to make our Hong Kong office our headquarters in future. I now have 11 employees in total.

Now we have our own brand, ParaChem and we manufacture Carbon Black and a few fine chemicals under our brand name.

Alibaba serves as a global platform for doing business around the world. My business have benefited and grown tremendously as a normal member with Alibaba. It helped and transformed the life of a seventeen years old young photographer, and entered the world of entrepreneurship at the age of twenty-three as an industrial raw material supplier.

• Facts

  Mid 2000 (17 yrs old) - Started career in T-Shirt printing and designing at a small space at home
  Beginning 2001 (18 yrs old) - The college principal gave me work for designing and printing college ID card and started a small shop
  2002 (19 yrs old) - Took photography as a profession after training and started printing workstation in the company name Digital Island
  2003 (20 yrs old) - Founded a company BIAN IT Solutions which name was later changed to Paradise International in early 2004
  August 2004 (21 yrs old) - Stopped photography etc completely and entered into rubber trading (broking and commission agent)

• Vision

  2009: We want to make our newly registered Hong Kong company as our headquarters and corporate office for all our current and future business.

The technology of Alibaba.com is very much increasing and improving day by day. Whenever we think of finding some products or selling our new products the first name which arises is Alibaba.

So we are totally depending on Alibaba.com’s B2B technology.

Many Chinese customers do not understand English. Therefore, we use the translation tool to communicate with our Chinese customers. We also use MSN chat and TradeManager to communicate with our customers. This saves the cost of phone bills. It allows us to find the right customers.

The company gives up to 10% of our profit to charity.

We have a bus stop outside our office where a lot of college students use. However, the bus stop does not have a roof and it is very inconvenient when it rains. Therefore, our company hired an engineer to build a new bus stop, which will be completed in May.

We have also been giving food and having meals with orphans in the orphanage about 1-2 times a month. We support the children’s education by giving them money for books, uniforms, exam fees and stationery.