In a recent Inventor’s Business Daily article entitled “Use Your Resources Better; Save And Profit Handsomely,” Alibaba.com’s director of global marketing Linda Kozlowski talked about the key to a company’s growth. “When you look over time, the businesses that tend to be the most successful tend to be the ones that find the challenges that customers are facing and figure out how to solve those," she noted. Indeed, solving customers’ problems has been Alibaba.com’s number one priority. When it comes to global trade, one of the biggest concerns that our customers told us is product quality. How does a buyer from ...

Last week the Alibaba team met a lot of fantastic users who are also inventors at the 2012 National Hardware Show in Vegas. And we thought, what better way to honor these amazing inventors who are embracing global trades than to showcase their stories during the World Trade Month in May. You, our readers, must also be curious about their journeys and the advice they can share with you. So, Alibaba is bringing you one video every Wednesday in May that features entrepreneurs and industry experts who can share with you their insights into the world of inventions and international trade. ...

Today is the opening day of the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas. Before I arrived at the show, I was expecting to see products you would find at stores like Home Depot. To my surprise, I met many innovators, product developers and inventors with products that are not even on the shelves yet. For example, here is a pet shower system to clean your pet that is designed so you can do so without having water splashing all over you: Here is another product called Bag Master, an innovative tool to hold up garbage bags so you don’t have to: I also met ...

What happens when you are stranded with a flat tire in the middle of the desolate Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah? You can either wait for hours until someone passes by or you can improvise and think fast on your feet like Robert Paasch. Robert was in luck as he drove his company truck, which was equipped with tools of all kinds. Robert was able to cut a piece of leather off a nail bag and glued it to the puncture. Then, he cut an air hose from a nail gun and affixed an air chuck onto the hose; he creatively ...

How safe is the online trading you do? Alibaba recently launched a survey to help buyers measure their “Safe Sourcing Score”. As the world is increasingly global and relies on cross-border suppliers for goods and services, it is important to be prudent and mindful of the intricacies of international trading. But there is no reason why the international sourcing you do cannot be done safely and successfully as long as you are taking the right measures. The survey is by no means scientific, but it will give you an indication whether you are on the right track in sourcing safely from the Internet. Once you ...