How to get export orders from foreign buyers online

How to get export orders, step by step

• Get your Importer Exporter Code. Apply online on the DGFT website before your first serious enquiry, so no buyer waits on paperwork.
• Build one page per product. Name each page in the buyer's words, with the grades, packing, minimum order and a one-step way to ask for a quote.
• Join your export promotion council and Trade Connect. Both cost little, list you where foreign buyers and Indian missions look, and pass on trade enquiries for your product.
• Add one or two B2B marketplaces. They bring reach quickly. Keep your own website as the place a buyer goes to check you.
• Make sure AI tools can describe you. One clear sentence on each product page, saying what you make, where, and in which grades and quantities.
• Reply the same day, and check the buyer. The first clear answer often wins the order. Use ECGC to check a buyer before you give credit.
• Go to fairs once the first orders come in. Fairs are the costliest route per buyer, and the government's Market Access Support helps pay for them.

For our herb exporter client, the first overseas enquiry came through its own new website, fifteen days after launch. The sections below explain each step.

Where foreign buyers look for suppliers

A buyer who needs a new supplier usually starts with a search. In a survey Google ran with National Research Group, published in December 2025, senior business buyers in the United States said they judge suppliers through Google Search, AI tools, social media and recommendations from peers, more than through salespeople. Nearly three in four finished buying within twelve weeks.

The search itself is specific. A buyer types the product, often with a grade or form, and a trade word such as manufacturer, supplier or exporter. They rarely type a company name. That makes your product pages the place where most export orders begin, more than your homepage.

Source: Digital Commerce 360: Google and National Research Group survey of B2B buyers (5 December 2025).

Start with the help the government runs

• Trade Connect. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade runs trade.gov.in, which brings together help from the Department of Commerce, Indian missions abroad and the export promotion councils. Its Source from India section lets status holder exporters publish a page that foreign buyers can browse.
• Your export promotion council. Each council covers a group of products. Membership puts you in its member directory and on the trade enquiries and fair delegations it organises for your product.
• Market Access Support. Announced on 31 December 2025 under the Export Promotion Mission: ₹4,531 crore over six years for buyer-seller meets abroad, international trade fairs and reverse buyer-seller meets held in India, with 35% of the places in buyer-seller meets and trade delegations reserved for MSMEs.
• An Importer Exporter Code. You need an IEC from DGFT to export. You apply for it online on the DGFT website, so get it before your first serious enquiry and no buyer is kept waiting.

Sources: DGFT: Trade Connect e-platform, including Source from India; Outlook Business: Govt rolls out ₹4,531 crore Market Access Support for exporters (31 December 2025); DGFT: apply for an Importer Exporter Code (IEC).

Marketplaces and trade fairs

B2B marketplaces put you in front of buyers quickly. Your listing sits beside your competitors, and buyers there often compare on price first. They work best as one more place to be found, with your own website as the place a buyer goes to check you. Our guide to B2B portals for exporters compares IndiaMART, TradeIndia and Alibaba.com.

Trade fairs and buyer-seller meets give you a face-to-face meeting that nothing online can match. For a small exporter they are also the costliest route per buyer, which is why the support above matters. A buyer you meet at a fair will still look you up online before placing an order, so get your website ready before the fair.

Your own website, built around what buyers search

Your own site is the one page on the internet where you are the only supplier. Buyers who find you through a search, a fair or a marketplace come to it to decide whether to write. For it to bring orders on its own, each product needs its own page, named in the buyer's words, with the grades, packing, minimum order and a one-step way to ask for a quote.

A herb exporter in Rajasthan had only a few pages of product photos until July 2026. We built it a new export site on a new domain. The site went live on 3 July 2026, the first overseas enquiry arrived on 18 July from a buyer in the United States, and in the 28 days to 3 October the site was on Google's first page for 197 searches. Our article on SEO for exporters and manufacturers sets out what each product page needs.

Getting named when buyers ask AI tools

Buyers now also ask ChatGPT or Google's AI Overview for a list of suppliers. Those answers are built from pages that rank and that say plainly who makes what, and where. One clear sentence on each product page, saying that you make it, where, and in which grades and quantities, gives those tools something accurate to quote.

Our exporter client's pages appeared in Google's AI features 3.76K times in the three months to 13 October 2026, from almost none in mid-July, according to its Search Console.

Reply fast, and check the buyer

• Reply the same day. A buyer who writes to several suppliers often goes with the first clear answer. WhatsApp and email on every product page make a fast reply easy for both sides.
• Check a buyer before you give credit. ECGC, the government's export credit insurer, assesses overseas buyers and can cover you if a buyer does not pay. Ask your bank about it before you agree to anything other than advance payment or a letter of credit.
• Learn the look of a fake enquiry. Some messages are scams: a fee to register as a supplier, a request built around a link, or an order that seems too large for a first contact. Genuine buyers ask about the product, the grade, the quantity and the price.

Source: ECGC: export credit insurance for Indian exporters.

What your first month with us looks like

1. Week 1We take your website and start shippingWe read your Search Console and Analytics, fix whatever stops Google and AI tools reading your site, and start shipping changes. Your live dashboard is up the same week.
2. Week 2We measure, then sharpenWe see what the first changes did and improve on them: pages named the way people search, pages that stop competing with each other, and a faster, clearer site that turns visits into enquiries.
3. Week 3The first resultsFor the searches we started with, this is when we expect rankings to climb, and when we start checking Google's AI answers for your business.
4. Week 4You see it, and we talk it throughYour DataPls dashboard shows every search, ranking and lead, updated daily. Every week we call you to go through it, and we message you the day something important changes.

Questions people ask