TradeIndia is an online Business to Business (B2B) portal[1] for small businesses based in India and around the globe. The portal was started in 1996 by Bikky Khosla and is maintained and promoted under the flagship company, Infocom Network Pvt. Ltd.[2] The company is headquartered in New Delhi, India, and has branch offices in 35 cities[3] across India. It employs over 1200 professionals.

TradeIndia
IndustryInternet Marketing
Founded1996
FounderBikky Khosla
Headquarters,
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Sandip Chhettri (CEO)
Websitewww.tradeindia.com

History

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The company has published Exporters Yellow Pages since 7 September 1990 and in 1996 started the web portal tradeindia.com[4] to provide online directory services to the global export-import community.

Funding

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The initial investment of $1.7 million[5] was made in Infocom Network Ltd. in 2001 by Vinod Khosla, an Indian-born California-based venture capitalist and elder brother of Bikky Khosla.[6]

About the portal

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The portal provides information about Indian and global sellers and buyers with over 12,000 product categories and sub-categories.[7] The main products and services offered by the portal include online business catalogs, DialB2B,[8][9] Trade Alerts, Call Me Free Service, credit reports[10] and trade leads. The portal has a separate section on trade shows and the company regularly participates in global and domestic trade shows. The portal also has a special mobile-optimised version for mobile phone users.[11][12]

In 2009, the company launched two vertical portals to cater to the business requirements of SMEs – one a news-based portal called SMETtimes[13][14][15] and the other a separate section[16] showcasing suppliers from China. The portal claims to be the first Indian B2B portal to have more than 3 million registered users, of which over 2 million are SMEs.

Indianised domain name

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The portal offers an Indianised Domain Name Booking service developed by VeriSign.[17]

Events organised

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  • Emerging India Awards[18]
  • Workshop on effective use of internet for the growth of business[19][20]
  • 2nd Food & Agri Exporters Conclave[21]
  • SME Conclave[22]

Partnerships

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In April 2013, the company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) of the Ministry of Commerce of Thailand, to boost Indo-Thai bilateral trade.[23] TradeIndia is also associated with Google as their premier SME partner.[24][25] Previously, TradeIndia had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Korea International Trade Association(KITA)[26] to promote SMEs and partnered[2] with Global Sources in organising the Machinery & Industrial Supplies Fair.

References

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  1. ^ Snigdha Sengupta, with 3700+ employees "The roll out continues" Archived 7 July 2012 at archive.today, Outlook Business, 31 May 2008.
  2. ^ a b "Global Sources Partners TradeIndia.com for Domestic Event", Trade Show News Network, 19 May 2011.
  3. ^ Virendra Singh Rawat, "B2B portal to educate SMEs over trading prudence", Business Standard, 18 June 2013.
  4. ^ Press Trust of India, "Web Transactions in India to reach $100 bn in 2008", Hindustan Times, 31 December 2007.
  5. ^ "Khosla Makes Rare Home Investment", Times of India, 2 February 2001.
  6. ^ Meha Mathur, "Small is challenging" Archived 9 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Media Mates, 25 January 2013, retrieved 13 May 2013.
  7. ^ Paotinlen Chongloi, "Business Opportunities with special reference to Northeast India and Realigning strategies towards the Look East Policy", Journal of North East India Studies 1.1, July–December 2011, pp. 81-99.
  8. ^ "Tradeindia Launches First of its Kind DIALB2B Service", The Financial Express, 9 November 2009.
  9. ^ Seema, "DIALB2B – TradeIndia’s New On-phone Service", Watblog.com, 10 November 2009.
  10. ^ "Tradeindia.Com launches Credit Report", The Economic Times, 24 August 2005.
  11. ^ Alap Naik Desai, " B2B Portal TradeIndia.com Release Mobile Platform For Portable Volume Trading" Archived 26 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Watblog.com, 21 March 2013.
  12. ^ "Tradeindia Extends Its Reach To Mobile Phone Users" Archived 23 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine, EFYTimes.com, 20 March 2013.
  13. ^ "News line for SMEs", Business India, 4 May 2008.
  14. ^ Rajiv Dingra, "TradeIndia Launches SMETimes – An SME News Portal" Archived 3 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Watblog.com, 10 April 2008.
  15. ^ "Tradeindia.com launched a news website on SMEs & Indian Economy", Press release, 16 September 2009.
  16. ^ Seema, "Recap 2009 – B2B Portals" Archived 11 February 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Watblog.com, 30 December 2009.
  17. ^ "New tool to help MSMEs register Indianised Net addresses", Business Standard, 15 March 2011.
  18. ^ "CNBC-TV18’s presents ‘Emerging India Forum’ in Hyderabad", AFAQS, 5 November 2012.
  19. ^ "Workshop on effective use of Internet for the growth of business", 18 November 2011, Ahmedabad, India Archived 12 April 2013 at archive.today, TradeIndia."Workshop on effective use of Internet for the growth of business", 16 November 2011, Rajkot, India Archived 12 April 2013 at archive.today, TradeIndia.
  20. ^ "Workshop on effective use of Internet for the growth of business", 17 November 2011, Vadodra, India Archived 12 April 2013 at archive.today, TradeIndia.
  21. ^ ASSOCHAM Events: 2nd Food & Agri Exporters Conclave, 8 February 2011 ASSOCHAM House, New Delhi, ASSOCHAM, archived at the Internet Archive, 16 January 2013.
  22. ^ Bikky Khosla, "SME Conclave – awareness on SME stock exchange", SME Times, 8 May 2012.
  23. ^ "Ecommerce tie-up to promote Indo-Thai trade", Dataquest, 23 April 2013.
  24. ^ "Google Adwords Premier SME Partner Programme", Google, retrieved 13 May 2013.
  25. ^ Business Wire India, "TradeIndia Partners with Google India as a Premier SME Partner(PSP)", Morning Star, 23 October 2012.
  26. ^ Business Wire India, "Tradeindia.com Signs MoU with Korea International Trade Association (KITA)", IT News Online, 14 April 2010.
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