The first mile of foreign trade — consolidate inquiries scattered across mailboxes, Alibaba TradeManager, trade-show business cards and website messages into one table, auto-identify existing customers, match the product library, and generate follow-up tasks, so salespeople no longer have to "dig through the inbox for history."
Multi-entry collection + auto-merge + rule-based assignment + customer-profile accumulation — inquiries are no longer orphans in the inbox
Integrate Gmail/Outlook/corporate mailboxes, the Alibaba International Station backend, Made-in-China, website inquiry forms, and one-click import of trade-show scanner Excel
Deduplicate and match by sender email / company name / phone; on a hit, auto-merge historical inquiries and quotes for an existing customer, and route new customers through the "develop customer" flow
Model numbers, HS Codes and keywords mentioned in the inquiry body / attachments are auto-searched in the product library, with the candidate list brought into the quote in one click
Configure auto-dispatch by four rule types — country, product line, customer tier, load balancing; public-pool rules auto-release un-followed inquiries
Multi-dimension tags like "high intent" / "price sensitive" / "project inquiry," with auto A/B/C grading based on inquiry count, product count and estimated amount
After confirming an inquiry, convert to a quote in one click, with product / quantity / customer / salesperson auto-populated — no re-entry
Latest inquiries
A stack of cards from the Hong Kong electronics show, 30 unread in the Alibaba backend, a dozen inquiries sitting in a salesperson's personal Gmail — this info used to be scattered across different people and entries, and missing the golden 24-hour follow-up window meant the trail went cold. SBK funnels all entries into one inquiry list, with each inquiry carrying a full lifecycle of "assigned time / first-response time / closure reason."
Assignment rules (stackable)
European/American customers to the salesperson with strong English, Russian-region customers to the Russian-speaking salesperson, lighting products to the lighting team, mechanical-electronic products to the M&E team — once assignment rules are configured, new inquiries are auto-dispatched, and the salesperson gets an instant alert via WeChat Work / email / internal message.
Conversion funnel (this quarter)
One inquiry may evolve into 3 rounds of quotes, finally closing 1 contract — these stages used to be disconnected, leaving "how many person-days we spent on the inquiry and what the final conversion rate was" unanswerable. SBK treats the inquiry as the source node of the trade order chain, with all downstream documents linking back to the inquiry ID.
Bulk-entered via scanner, auto-dispatched to the matching salesperson by country; 80% get a first reply within 48h, with a conversion rate 3× the paper-card era.
Auto-synced into the system via API and assigned by product to the lighting team / M&E team, so salespeople no longer constantly switch to the Alibaba backend to copy-paste one by one.
German customer Hans inquires again from a new email; the system identifies him as an existing customer by company name and auto-pulls a 3-year-old quote for reference.
An independent SOHO needs no complex dispatch — all channel inquiries consolidate into one personal list, sorted by tier to prioritize tier-A first.
The inquiry is the start; pair it with quote, contract and PI to run the loop
Auto-calculate freight and insurance for 11 trade terms, one-click multi-currency conversion
Bilingual contract templates, e-signature, linked to inquiry and quote
Integrated management of overseas customer profiles, follow-up records and opportunity stages
Customer emails auto-archived to the inquiry timeline, documents sent in one click
Sign up to try the full inquiry-consolidation capability for free, or book a consultant demo