May 24, 2010
RingCentral Partners with Alibaba.com for New Communications Platform
What do you get when you cross RingCentral with Alibaba.com?
Apparently, a new global communication service for Chinese suppliers that use Alibaba.com. (Keep reading, even if you aren’t a Chinese supplier. There’s something here for you, too. We’ll get to that after we explore the latest news.)
Here’s how the new service works. Alibaba.com suppliers who are based in China can set up a U.S. toll-free phone and fax number from the convenience of their PC and connect them with their offices in China.
The deal exposes RingCentral to more than 50 million registered users on Alibaba.com, but it also gives Chinese suppliers an opportunity to get something they may have been missing: a local U.S. point of contact that makes it easier for buyers to connect with them. A buyer on Alibaba.com can now dial the U.S. phone number on a member’s site and place an order. The U.S. toll-free phone and fax numbers will automatically appear in the “Contact Us” section on the supplier’s profile page.
“International e-commerce is thriving and has become an important factor in the worldwide economy,” said Brandon Dupsky, director of eCommerce Merchants Trade Association. “With this new service, Alibaba.com brings one of the most direct and convenient business tools – the business phone system– to global Internet commerce.”
So what’s in it for you? Well, flip the script and you’ll find out. You can get a local number in China so you don’t have to expand your business there. Well, you can’t do it with RingCentral. But you can set up a virtual office with companies like Regus or Davinci Virtual and accomplish the same thing. In fact, with the larger virtual office providers you can get a phone number in just about any major city in the world. So what are you waiting for?
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