TradeMatch provides international trade
opportunities through new markets,
partners and customers

TradeMatch is a trade matching service for both buyers and sellers. It helps buyers to find sellers by means of their profile and advertisements. When a buyer finds an advertisement of interest they can see the seller's full profile page. Sellers can also find buyers through the buyer's profile and interest areas.

TradeMatch also provides automated alerts to buyers of any sellers that match their buying criteria.

When you come to the registration page, we will ask you to provide your name, e-mail address and basic information about your company. One of the most important items is your company profile. TradeMatch sends your company profile and details of the products and services that you advertise to potential trade partners.

Most TradeMatch users are both sellers and buyers and so we also ask you to define your purchasing interests. This comprises both your buyer's profile to describe your requirements and keywords to classify the products and services that you may be seeking.

You can, subsequently, maintain your registered details via your home page and add further information to improve your company's visibility on TradeMatch.

From your home page, you can set preference to improve your use of TradeMatch. These settings are specific to your company as the registered TradeMatch user. Options include the number of advertisements that appear per search results page, and the range of news items that appear on your home page.

From your home page, click on the ’Advertise’ button and then complete the fields for the advertisement.

The ’Summary’ is the heading that will be shown both in, and sometimes in place of the full advertisement. It should provide as much information as possible about the product/service that you are advertising.

The ’Text’ is the body of the advertisement and will be shown in full whenever the advertisement is displayed. The ideal balance is a full description of the product or service without excess or repeated information. Please remember that information about your company should be in your company profile and not in each advertisement.

The ’Keywords’ are the codes by which your advertisement is indexed on the TradeMatch database. You should try to use the keyword(s) that a person seeking your products/services would use. We recommend that you spend a few minutes using the keyword search to gain a better understanding of the keyword structure and that you read the help notes on keywords. By entering a few characters of the keyword, you will see a list of keyword suggestions. Simply click on the most appropriate suggestion.

The ’Category’ describes the general area of interest for your product or service. The use of categories is described within these help pages. Just select the category that best describes the use of your product or service.

The ’Image’ is a picture that can be uploaded to complement your advertisement. Images do attract the interest of readers more than advertisements without images and, certainly, TradeMatch gives display prominence to advertisements that have images (they appear higher in the order of display). Use the browser function to locate an image on your computer and simply select it for upload. We will automatically scale the image to suit the TradeMatch page layout. Please only use images for which you have the rights or necessary permissions to display on the Internet.

The keyword search shows all advertisements that include that keyword. Simply type a few letters of a keyword and click on the most appropriate suggestion to search. The suggestions include the 20 most popular categories, sorted alphabetically.

Once you find an advertisement of interest, simply click to see the supplier's full profile which includes all their other advertisements. The contact option enables you to send an enquiry. Your profile and details the advertisement will be included automatically.

The keyword search results initially include all of the advertisements containing the keyword. You may progressively filter the results to reduce the number of matching advertisements.

Firstly, the results may include matching advertisements from a number of categories. Simply click on a category to limit results to advertisements in that category. For example, searching for ’shoes’ may return advertisements in categories ’Fashion’ and ’Construction’.

Secondly, the matching advertisements may contain additional keywords. Simply click on one of these additional keywords to filter the results tom include only those advertisements that contain both keywords. For example, searching for ’dental’ may return keywords including ’camera’. Clicking on camera will limit the results to advertisements for ’dental cameras’. Note that the filtered results are the logical AND of the two (or more) keywords.

The search results pages normally shows the full advertisement including any available picture. You can, optionally, display the search results in compressed form showing only the advertisement heading and a thumbnail picture. You can then click on an advertisement line to see the full advertisement without disrupting the list.

Keywords are the most important part of the TradeMatch structure. We classify products and services by use of keywords and we match buyers and sellers by the same keywords.

Keywords describe the type of product or service that you are selling or seeking to buy. Keywords can be simple and very generic such as SHOES. Keywords can also be more specific such as FASHION-SHOES.

When you search or add an advertisement, you will be asked to enter a keyword. Simply enter a few characters and you will be prompted with suggestions. For example, entering FASH will generate suggestions including FASHION-SHOES, FASHION-BAGS etc. Similarly, entering BAGS will generate suggestions including BAGS-FASHION, BAGS-PLASTIC etc. You will see that BAGS-FASHION and FASHION-BAGS produce the same results; and many keywords like this that have been made bi-directional to improve their effectiveness.

In establishing the TradeMatch dictionary of keywords, we have tried to balance the need to be sufficiently general and sufficiently specific, ie to capture a wide enough range of advertisements and also to allow searches to be narrowed down to find the appropriate seller.

Categories provide useful sub-sections of TradeMatch advertisements but they are not as important as keywords.

Ideally, keywords would uniquely identify products and the category within which they should be listed. In practice, however, some keywords can have different interpretations; for example, shoes may be high-heeled in the fashion category but may be steel-capped in the construction category.

We therefore use the category to filter search results and to produce a more relevant set of search results. Do not worry if you select the wrong category, we will automatically review your advertisement and may re-allocate it to another category for you.

Buyers normally find your company by using the keyword search. They will see a list of advertisements containing that keyword. By selecting any one of your advertisements, they will see your profile page which includes all of your advertisements.

Trade marks are brand names that identify, in the mind of a customer, the trade origin of certain goods or services. The owner of a trade mark has the legal right to prevent others from using that mark in relation to those goods or services. This legal right is broad and covers third-party uses of the trade mark that may confuse the public as to the true origin of the goods or services, and also uses that may damage or dilute the value and unique nature of the trade mark.

Many companies use trade marks incorrectly. Sometimes this is through ignorance of the law and sometimes it is a deliberate attempt to gain business by taking unfair advantage of the value of someone else’s trade mark. TradeMatch will, wherever possible, seek to stop or limit illegal use of trade marks. This may include changing or editing (automatically or manually) advertisements containing third-party trade marks, and/or suspending or deleting advertisements.

Examples of bonafide use of third-party trade marks will be found in advertisements that provide parts and accessories for branded products. For example, spare parts for Caterpillar excavators is a valid use of the Caterpillar trade mark.

Unfortunately, illegal use of third-party trade marks appears to be common in the fashion sector where advertisers often claim that their goods are, for example, Gucci look-alikes. This claim infringes the Gucci trade mark even if it is made clear that the source of the goods is not from Gucci.

We are also aware that manufacturers may make claims that goods such as wristwatches and other fashion items originate from the branded source. Such claims are illegal and the goods must be regarded as counterfeit. Where possible, TradeMatch will act to suspend or remove any such advertisements.