Plasticscommerce .com: Virtual offices

Many clients do not have websites of their own, says Quek, and do not know how to promote themselves. Even if they do have a site, they don't tend to achieve a very high profile as there are too many sites online.

When plasticscommerce.com spends money on advertising, they are also promoting their clients on the portal as well.

- Quek Mei Hsien
CEO, Plasticscommerce.com

Web sites also require maintenance and exposure.

The solution, says Quek, is to join a portal.

"We're trying to be the marketplace for plastics," she says. "So that everyone who wants anything to do with plastics will then come to this portal - and that's where you can be found."

When plasticscommerce.com spends money on advertising, they are also promoting their clients on the portal as well, noted Quek.

Virtual offices are not very fancy, claims Quek, as they are catered to a business community. The company also surveyed the industry to see what information was desired to facilitate business.

Clients that are not Internet-connected have email sent to the portal on their behalf, which is then faxed to them.

The virtual offices consist of several elements, such as a company profile, a welcome message, and an equipment listing - which is important as it will enable client's customers to be able to tell what kinds of projects that client will be able to take based on their equipment.

Another service to enable global marketing, is the chinese portal, a mirror site in Chinese, which caters to the greater China market.

"A lot of our chinese clients want to interact with the domestic clients, but they also want an international client base."

To aid in that, translation is done in-house for the mirror.