Symptoms you may be seeing
- Overseas enquiries come only through trade fairs and agents.Importers cannot find the certificates, packing and countries supplied that they check first.
The moment it matters
A sourcing manager for a European distributor is building a list of new suppliers in India. She has twenty names and time to write to five.
What the buyer sees
"Leading exporter of premium quality products to over 25 countries", with no list of the countries, no certificate numbers, nothing on packing or container loading, and an enquiry form that asks for her "mobile number" with an Indian prefix.
What it costs you
An overseas buyer cannot drop by your plant. The website is often the whole of her first impression, and she has many suppliers to choose from.
She checks what her own customers and auditors will ask her about: certifications, social and quality audits, packing, lead times, Incoterms. If she has to write to find out, she writes to someone else first.
What the buyer is asking at this point
"Who pays for freight, and how is it packed?"
He is checkingLanded cost and damage risk.
A good answerDelivery terms you usually work on and how each product is packed and loaded, with photographs.
"Which countries do you already ship to?"
He is checkingWhether you know her market's rules and paperwork.
A good answerCountries supplied, named, with the kinds of buyer in each.
"Which certificates and audits do you have, with numbers?"
He is checkingWhat her customers and auditors will ask her about.
A good answerCertificates and audits with numbers, bodies and dates, openable as PDFs.
"How do you pack, and how much fits in a container?"
He is checkingLanded cost per unit and damage risk.
A good answerPacking and container loading described, with photographs and quantities per container.
"On which Incoterms do you quote, and what is the lead time?"
He is checkingHow to compare your price with others.
A good answerThe Incoterms you usually work on and typical lead times from order to shipment.
All 62 questions industrial buyers ask, with good answers →
Check your own website in two minutes
- Does the site name the countries you supply and the kinds of buyer you ship to?
- Are certificates and audits named with their numbers and issuing bodies?
- Can a buyer read how you pack: cartons, pallets, container loads?
- Is there a named export contact, with email and WhatsApp, and a form that accepts an international phone number?
What good looks like
- An export page: countries supplied, types of buyer, lead times and Incoterms you work on.
- Certificates and audits with numbers, bodies and dates.
- Packing and container loading described, with photographs.
- A named export contact, and pages in plain English written for a buyer abroad.
How this gets put right
This problem rarely comes alone. It usually shares a cause with others on this list: a website written once, years ago, without the facts the plant and the sales team hold. Patching one page at a time seldom changes what a buyer concludes.
The AI Search Visibility Blueprint shows how far your own site has this and every related problem, how Google and the AI assistants read it today, and what to correct in what order. A Website Transformation rebuilds the site from your own documents so the whole set is put right together, and measures what moves each month.
Written by Arun Agrawal, founder of EbizIndia and author of Chosen Worldwide, a free guide to how Indian exporters earn the overseas buyer's trust.