BuyHive’s ‘bees’ to bridge gap in the sourcing industry

STARTUPS BuyHive’s ‘bees’ to bridge gaps across the sourcing industry

These experts aim to help customers build their ‘hive’ of trusted goods and services.

Minesh Pore, BuyHive CEO

Despite several countries slowly opening their borders, small and medium-sized retailers still find it difficult to travel just to source goods internationally. Even with the prevalence of online marketplaces, finding trusted sources of goods still takes time especially if you do not get help from experts.

That gap is exactly what BuyHive and their network of “bees” are trying to bridge.

“BuyHive aims to provide trust and transparency to the sourcing industry by providing a trusted marketplace for trade, where BuyHive takes full accountability on behalf of the buyer and provides a network of freelance sourcing experts for hire, which can help buyers make informed buying decisions,” cofounder and CEO of BuyHive Minesh Pore said in an exclusive interview with Hong Kong Business.

The startup wanted to solve the problem of trust and transparency in sourcing to improve buyers’ outcomes as they help resolve issues such as the lack of sourcing experience and resources, choosing the wrong supplier, and getting the wrong products.

The name BuyHive is a combination of the words ‘buy’ which refers to their solution that helps retail sellers buy successfully from suppliers, and ‘hive’ which refers to the network of freelancers called ‘Bees’, who are busy working on behalf of the buyers

BuyHive connects buyers to sourcing experts to help them find trustworthy suppliers

to find quality suppliers.

“We imagine that the Bees are helping to build the ‘hive’ (aka the retail business) for our buyer customers,” Pore said, explaining the business model.

BuyHive connects buyers to sourcing experts to help them find trustworthy suppliers or what they call Freelancer Assisted Sourcing. BuyHive matches the buyer with a relevant sourcing expert, who will then work on collecting the necessary product and supplier information and upload it onto BuyHive’s platform, where it goes through quality control and is converted into a sourcing report which can be downloaded by the buyer.

The e-commerce platform is where the suppliers found by their freelancer network are vetted by the team. Those who pass BuyHive’s standards are invited to join the e-commerce platform

Buyers can also use the platform to find and order products in bulk, and buy testing/inspection services, logistics services, trade finance solutions, insurance etc., and do financial due diligence. Once the order is placed and paid for, BuyHive takes accountability for the order and works with suppliers to make sure products are delivered as per the platform commitment. And for larger or more complex orders, BuyHive can manage the entire project for the buyer—from production to delivery, Pore added.

BuyHive charges buyers a fee per day for freelancer use starting at $2,317 (US$299), whilst charging a fee ranging from 5%-10% per transaction for the ecommerce platform. However, Pore stressed that suppliers can’t pay to join nor to rank high on their platform.

So far, BuyHive has not taken any external funding but is now talking to several investors to raise capital.

“We are reaching out to investors who have relevant domain expertise and have invested in companies that are synergistic in nature, which can help BuyHive scale up either with technology or market penetration strategies,” Pore said.

With the e-commerce platform already live and the freelancer platform ready to take off in Q1 2021, BuyHive’s next step is to be the most trusted sourcing platform in the market within five years.

“We will stay ahead of the competition by penetrating the major sourcing markets and main consumer product categories with our solutions, with a global network of freelance sourcing experts with broad product experience in all of these markets, and a trusted and transparent online marketplace with the full range of products from vetted suppliers in these markets,” concludes Pore.