Downfall of

TradeKey
Marketing Analytics: Case Study
Prepared by:
Ahsan Akbar - 16863
Khadija Alam - 21823
Fareha Fatima Javed - 14737
Danish Maqbool - 20158
Noor ul Ain Minhas - 16959
TradeKey
• TradeKey is a fully-owned subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Al Amhar Group of Companies

• It was established in 2006 in Pakistan by Waleed Abalkhail - Founder, Chairman & Managing Director

• TradeKey.com is an online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace that connects businesses across the
globe for international trade

• Tradekey act as a mini search engine where products from different countries can be traded

• It has a database of over 9 million registered members including importers, exporters, manufacturers and
traders coming from over 240 countries

• TradeKey.com is working with different international institutions and government bodies in boosting exports
of the countries
 Milestones of TradeKey

Ranked among
the Arabia Fastest Working with
500 Growing International
Companies Institutions like
And 25 Fastest ISO 9001 International
Growing Certified Trade Center and
Companies of The World Bank
Pakistan to promote SMEs.

The World’s 2nd Received a trophy ISO 27001

Largest Online for being the Best Certified
B2B Marketplace E-Marketplace in .
Pakistan by
P@SHA
.
 Industry Overview
Meet Our
Founded by Jack Ma in the year

The company was established in the year 1996 and

the main aim of Focus Technology Co. Ltd. is to
provide decent privileges to its customers.
Team
1999,Alibaab.com is Chinese based
world’s largest B2B Marketplace & trading
platform to international trade community.

GlobalMarket.com is a leading online M2B

(manufacturers to business) marketplace
that connects global buyers with accredited
Chinese manufacturers timely and cost- Made-in-
Gloabal Alibaba.com
effectively. china.com
market.
com

Indiamart.
com
Globalsource.
com Founded in 1996 and headquartered in
IndiaMart.com is presently providing golden opportunities
to 1.2 million Indian suppliers who are generating decent Hong Kong, Global Sources is one of the
profits as well as benefits by getting in touch with almost world’s leading B2B media companies that
6.5 million buyers, importers and purchasers from are main facilitator of international trade
different parts of the world. with Mainland China.
 TradeKey’s Operating Process

Process for building a profile/shop Process of Order for suppliers

Suppliers Sign-up on TradeKey Buyers Search for Products & Find List of
Suppliers

Suppliers Post Products & Offers Buyers Select Suppliers and Send Inquiries

TradeKey Optimizes Suppliers’ Profiles Supplier Respond with Quotations

Buyers find Suppliers’ Products Buyers Negotiate with Suppliers

Pricing and shipping terms are finalized

Buyers & Suppliers are Connected
Order is placed
TradeKey’s Revenue Stream

TradeKey offers priority listing to suppliers and 01

charges membership fees in the exchange

TradeKey charge only for once for a specific tenure

02 and also offer certain features in different
membership packages.

There are four types of memberships which

TradeKey offers 03

Each of the services is designed to provide the

04 merchant maximum exposure to the marketplace,
including some value addition characteristics
 Membership Types

SilverKey GoldKey GoldKey VIP

Value Integration Process (VIP)
Plus is the most elite and a highly
facilitating service.

In addition with the Industry

The Gold Key offers Key Account Manager,VIP
This membership almost same services Gold Key Plus offers ad offers an Overseas Business
with an addition to Development Manager plus
allows merchant to post ditional value with an In
Buyer Consultant, who will
sale offers and have value which include dustry Key Account Man improve the trade, increase the
access to potential unlimited product ager, who would hold th business, and connect the most
postings and unlimited suitable buyers with sellers
buyers worldwide e account, monitor it an
with his buyer consultancy
category selection d increase the trade with expertise.
his hands on experience
With VIP, merchants can also
in the marketplace
take advantage of international
business meetings,
international tours ,with a focus
of doing fast and lucrative trade
in the global markets.
 Tradekey.com
Growth Rate of Registered Users Web Traffic

Traffic on TradeKey .com from

Growth rate of October 2018 to March 2019 is
registered users on approximately 452,000
tradekey.com has
62% of the traffic was from
declined over the years web search out of which
form 168% in 2006- 99.97% was organic and
2007 to 1% in 2018- 0.03% came through paid
advertising
2019
1.9% of the web traffic came
The growth rate majorly through from Referrals and
declined by 112% in 1.27% from social media
2007-2008 TradeKey’s bounce rate
remained at a high of
approximately 61%
 Growth Rate of Registered Users
10,000,000 180%
Number of Registered Users

9,000,000 168% 160%

8,000,000 140%

Growth Rate
7,000,000
120%
6,000,000
100%
5,000,000
79% 80%
4,000,000
59% 60%
3,000,000
2,000,000 40%
31%
1,000,000 19% 14% 20%
10% 7% 5% 6% 3% 2% 1%
- 0%
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Year
Factors leading
to the downfall
of TradeKey
 Lack of Product Images

Sellers faced
difficulty in
arranging high Some of them
quality photos did not post any
photos with the
product

Sellers posted
images of product(s)
similar to their
product(s)
misleading the
viewer
 Controversial Trust Points

Silver Key – 200 TPs

• Trust points on tradekey.com indicate that the sellers and their products are trust worthy

• A company earned trust points on TradeKey by submitting company’s incorporation

certificate or any evidence of company’s registration in its local area
GoldenKey – 3000 TPs
• This process did not include any step to verify whether the prospective seller is
trustworthy or not

• Untrusted sellers joined TradeKey and got exposure without any security check
GoldKey Plus – 5000 TPs
• This indicated that the sellers were earning trust points based on the type of the
membership they purchased rather than on the basis of their actual service

• It also left an impression on buyers that the amount of money paid by sellers to register
on TradeKey was the only criteria of earning trust score
VIP – 8000 TPs
Negative Customer Reviews
Trade Key failed to notice and manage its reputation
Your Text Here
You can simply impress your audience and add a
unique zing and appeal to your Presentations.

Bad website outlook

Poor experience with tradekey ’s

help center

Bad experience with sellers

registered on TradeKey
Discontinuation of TRADEMATE

TradeKey launched
TRADEMATE to bridge It was difficult to download The feature was
communication gap and install discontinued
between buyers and sellers
 Email Marketing Campaigns

01 02 03 04

Reduction inorganic The response rate This was due to the This resulted in an
inquiry generation led from each email user data not being increased non-
Trade Key to marketing campaign customized before subscription rate and
extensively use email started to decline running the number of non-
marketing campaign subscribers
.
 Customer Service Department
• After a legal case against TradeKey in 2010, the customer service representatives tried to upsell and cross sell extensively to
maximum prospects

• Customer service department focused on generating primary sales (TradeKey ’s memberships) rather than generating secondary
sales (sales to online buyers) for their clients
 Inquiry/Order Challenge
Inquiry process
Assistance is provided to sellers
Terms & Conditions Finalization
Pricing terms, shipping terms

DRM, KAM, iKAM,

Buyer Consultants Terms not accepted
Inquiries are wasted if any of the sales terms
are not agreed upon by either or both the
parties involved
Inquiry Wasted
No Inquiry, No Order
Orders derived from inquiries

Chance of Order
Declined Accumulated Impact
The more inquiries were wasted, the chances
Dissatisfaction for Tradekey sellers of sales for sellers on TradeKey became less
Sellers are dissatisfied with Tradekey
Angry Customers pressurized to retain Membership

• Sellers failed to get the revenue against what they had invested on tradekey.com

• The pressure of retaining customers on TradeKey’s sales team

• This resulted in agitation of the customer and damaged the relationship of TradeKey’s representatives and
its customers on a macro level
 Over commitment

The pressure of retaining customers

made TradeKey representatives to Big mistake of over commitment
offer more when there was a less ended up with more negative results
chance to retain the customer (seller) for TradeKey
 The Legal Case
The Legal Case
• TradeKey .com, finding that it "knowingly"
assisted counterfeiters who were selling
thousands of fake goods

• Cartier, Chloé, Alfred Dunhill, Montblanc,

Panerai, and A Lange & Söhne convinced
the court

• The California court's summary judgment

found that TradeKey knowingly allowed its
members to engage in wholesale
counterfeiting of plaintiffs’ marks
Revision of Google’s Policy
• TradeKey suffered a massive loss after
Google revised its SEO policy in February,
2011 known as Panda in the world of IT

• Google changed its search algorithm to

remove shallow and low-quality content
from its top search results

• According to Searchengineland.com,
TradeKey ’s traffic reduced by 89% and it
ended up among 25 companies whose
online visibility reduced dramatically
 Infographic Style
Content Here
Get a modern PowerPoint Presentation
Your Text Here that is beautifully designed.
Get a modern PowerPoint Presentation that
is beautifully designed.
Content Here
Your Text Here
Get a modern PowerPoint Presentation that
is beautifully designed.
Content Here
Your Text Here
Get a modern PowerPoint Presentation that
is beautifully designed.
Content Here
Your Text Here
Get a modern PowerPoint Presentation that
Content Here is beautifully designed.
Get a modern PowerPoint Presentation
that is beautifully designed.
Questions
1.Which business matrices will be
impacted by factors leading to
TradeKey’s downfall?

2. Did TradeKey lack a customer centric

business strategy or an effective
marketing strategy? What do you think
was the main reason for TradeKey’s
downfall?

3. Recommend ways in which TradeKey

can strengthen its customer base and
achieve improved business performance.
 Solution # 1
• Reduce Click Through Rate on each post ads due to lack of proper guidelines

• Inquiry generation would reduce because of the discontinuation of TRADEMATE chat tool and email campaigns
targeted ineffectively

• Average membership price would also come down due to decrease in its premium package’s price

• Legal case lead to a negative word of mouth adversely affecting the number of memberships sold subsequently
leading to low revenue

• Customer retention rate would also reduce as customers will leave losing trust in company’s credibility

• As the case suggests that there were increased bad reviews from customer, this would also impact the Net
Promoter score

• Due to a change in Google’s SEO policy, the traffic on TradeKey’s website would also reduce as the customers
were not able to find TradeKey on top search results, adversely impacting its reach

• As suggested in the case study approximately 62% of the website traffic came through Google search.

• Reduced revenue and members of TradeKey due to all the impacting factors would eventually lead to a push
back in market share
 Solution # 2
• The major reason for TradeKey’s downfall was that it lacked a customer centric business strategy

• TradeKey lacked a customer centric strategy as most of their activities revolved around generating
revenue through primary sales rather than delivering customer satisfaction

• Prime focus of CSD should have been to help customers set up shop and suggest ways make it
attractive, generate leads by using their knowledge and expertise, and ensure smooth and
successful trade transaction

• Discontinuation of TRADEMATE further increased the gap between buyers and sellers and there
was no alternative provided by TradeKey to bridge this gap

• TradeKey forced agitated customers to renew memberships instead of taking steps to deliver
positive ROIs. Representatives also overcommitted services for the sake of retaining customers

• TradeKey could not develop an effective marketing strategy as approximately 62% of its website
traffic was redirected through Google search and once Google introduced Panda, it dramatically
brought down TradeKey’s visibility
• This indicates that TradeKey did not work on its content marketing either as Google new algorithm
removed low-quality content from its top results. While only 0.03%, of the 62% search lead traffic, was paid
it indicates that TradeKey did not invest in SEM

• Growth rate of registered user coming down from 168% to 1% also shows a lack of marketing efforts

• Only 1.27% of traffic on TradeKey’s website was coming though Social Media which indicates the lack of
social media marketing

• TradeKey failed to customize its email marketing campaigns and could not achieve conversion due to
excessive and irrelevant emails sent to prospective buyers and seller

• Although, TradeKey lacked marketing efforts but considering the treatment of its existing customers,
TradeKey should have been more customer focused as their business model heavily relied more on
customer retention through renewal of memberships

• Traders are in for a long-term business opportunities and growth.Customers would only stay if they receive
best customer service and positive return on their investment
 Solution # 3
• Since TradeKey’s business was dependent on the business of their customers, TradeKey’s strategy
should be focused around their growth of its customers’ business

• Ensure high customer retention rate and increase customer lifetime value

• They should establish a strong communication portal where both buyers and sellers can connect
easily with each other for business related queries and with TradeKey for any operational queries.

• There should be separate departments in charge to manage both matters respectively.

• TradeKey accepts subscribers from all the industries for international sales. It seems impossible for
any company to be able to deal such a big clutter of customers effectively. Therefore, analyze
strong industries and target customers accordingly to generate inquiries and orders effectively for
their customers

• It seemed hard for traders to post content for a product such as quality and authentic images.
TradeKey should ensure that all sellers post authentic pictures in order to safeguard the seller and
TradeKey’s own credibility
• They should also ensure uniformity of display across the website

• TradeKey should offer a user friendly interface and reduce complications in signups

• Trust points should only be allocated on basis of performance of each seller so that the buyers are
not misguided. This will also encourage other sellers to increase quality of trade at Tradekey.com
by becoming more customer centric in order to achieve high trust points and eventually more
trade

• TradeKey does not seem to invest on social media marketing, SEO or SEM. They should build
quality content in order to strengthen its SEO ranking and also invest on SEM. They should target
relevant publishers such as news, stock trading, car trading websites etc

• TradeKey should focus on effective use of user data by ensuring customization of data before
running any campaign. Campaigns should be targeted industry wise

• TradeKey should take immediate action against any complaints or negative reviews in order to
reach to the root of the problem and prevent it from happening in future

• The prime focus of TradeKey should be client servicing which may include efficient aftersales
services which in this case would be to ensure maximum connectivity and increased accessibility
between buyers and sellers. Optimized search results should be offered to both in order to
generate relevant inquiries and maximum possible conversion.
Thank You