This tutorial is the first in a series of tutorials that will cover the ins and outs of using Alibaba.com’s TradeManager. For those of you who do not know how TradeManager is helping our members fulfill their online sourcing activity, let me explain. By simply downloading and installing TradeManager, you can:

1. Communicate with buyers and suppliers in real time.
2. Search for buyers and suppliers on Alibaba.com.
3. Manage My Alibaba (CRM for Gold Suppliers).
4. View Trade Alert, Alibaba.com's new product notification.

If you do not have TradeManager installed you can download the installation file and follow the installation instructions by clicking on the button below.

Finding contacts to add to your TradeManager contacts list is as easy as searching for products, companies or buy-sell leads on Alibaba.com. But before doing anything else, open TradeManager and sign in using your Member ID and password.

Using TradeManager’s search box, follow the steps below to search Alibaba.com for the products, companies or trade leads that are relevant to you. In this example, I am going to search for laptop computers.

Enter your chosen search term into the search box Click on the button labeled Search and choose which part of Alibaba.com you would like to search using the menu that appears (see left). Search results will be now be displayed in your browser window.

In your search results you will notice TradeManager logos to the right-hand side of the results (TradeManager logos are available within search results and on every page of member websites.) A color logo means that that member is signed in to TradeManager and a gray logo denotes that that particular supplier is not signed in.

Browse through your search results until you find a supplier you wish to contact via TradeManager. To add a member to your contact list:

1. Click on the TradeManager logo (located in either search results or member websites)
2. In the Add to Contact List dialog box (see right) enter a brief introduction about yourself and click on the button labeled Send. This will send a request to be added to this member’s contact list.
3. Once approved, you will be able to begin sending and receiving messages to that member.

When you have been approved by a member to contact them, their TradeManager ID will appear in your TradeManager contact list.

In the image on the left, the new contact Horatio Yu has been addded to my contact list.

If you wish to organize your contacts into groups please read my "Creating Groups in TradeMangager " turorial.

Adding Contacts to TradeManager (Part 2)