How Vzlamade works for suppliers: a getting-started guide

This guide is for the Venezuelan company deciding whether it is worth being here. It describes what exists, not what we would like to exist.

What Vzlamade is, in one sentence

A directory of Venezuelan suppliers with a page per company and a page per sector, plus a channel through which a buyer can ask for a quote. We are not a trading company: we do not buy, we do not sell, we take no cut of your business and we hold nobody's money.

Why it exists

A buyer in Mexico wrote to say he had visited the site, found no list of suppliers, and could not see where to post what he needed. He was right: that list did not exist. That e-mail is the origin of nearly everything here today.

The problem was not — and is not — that Venezuela does not manufacture. It is that a workshop selling through a social-media account and one fair a year is invisible to somebody searching from abroad. The directory exists to close that gap.

What it costs: nothing

Being in the directory and publishing products costs no money. There are paid plans for additional features, but publishing is not one of them.

The three requirements to publish

For your company to publish products, three things are needed and only three:

1. A verified e-mail. A link arrives when you register; opening it is enough.
2. The company name.
3. A sector, and a city or state. The sector comes from a closed list — the same one that organises the directory — so your listing appears where a buyer looks for it.

That is all. Document verification is not a requirement. It is a separate, optional seal, explained below.

Step by step, the first time

1. Register as a supplier. Name, e-mail, password and your company name. One minute.

2. Open the link in the e-mail. Until you do, the account exists but cannot publish.

3. Complete the company profile. Sector, city or state, description, website and social accounts. The description is the part that pays: it is what a buyer reads and what search engines read. A two-line description and a forty-word one do not compete on equal terms.

4. Publish your first product. Essentials first: name, category, unit and a photo. The price is optional — leave it out and the listing says "price on request", which is normal in B2B.

5. Wait for requests, but not only that. Requests arrive by e-mail. In the meantime your listing is working: it is in the directory, on your sector's page, and in the sitemap search engines read.

Where your listing will appear

In three places, and it is worth knowing because it changes what is worth filling in properly:

In the [directory](/suppliers), with your name, sector, location and whatever badges you hold.

On your sector's page. If you make chocolate, the cacao and chocolate hub; if you roast coffee, the coffee one. Those pages are written to answer searches like "Venezuelan cacao suppliers", and your listing sits inside them.

On its own page, at a permanent address. That address does not change even if the company name does, because it may already be indexed and linked.

Three examples of complete listings, to see the range: Chocolates El Rey, Cacao de Origen and Procesadora Cacao Real (KKO Real). Notice how much each description says: that is the part you control entirely, the part that decides whether a buyer keeps reading, and also the part that decides whether your listing enters the sitemap.

If your company is already listed and you did not put it there

We publish listings for Venezuelan companies from public information so that buyers can find them. They are marked "unclaimed profile", and say so in the sentence above the company's name.

Those listings publish no e-mail, no phone and nobody's name. Those fields are stripped before the data leaves our server. And each listing records where the information came from.

Its own page has two buttons: claim it or ask us to take it down.

How we check the company is yours

Before handing a listing over we verify one of two things:

• that you write from an e-mail on your company's domain, or
• that you message us from the Instagram account already shown on the profile.

This is not bureaucracy. Without that check, anyone could claim a competitor's listing, and then the directory would be worth nothing to anybody. If you have neither route, write anyway and tell us how it can be confirmed — a person reviews it, not a system.

Once approved: if you already have an account, the company is assigned to it; if you do not, you receive a single-use registration link valid for seven days. When you sign in, the profile already carries what we had — sector, city, description — as a starting point.

And if you would rather not appear

Removal is real. The listing leaves the directory and the sitemap, its address tells search engines the page was withdrawn, and we record the company so no future import republishes it. That last part is what makes removal mean something: without it, the next import would bring it back.

What "Verificado" means

That you submitted business documents and they were checked. Nothing more. It does not mean we visited your plant or audited your production.

It is a seal, not a gate: you do not need it to publish. What it does is help a buyer who does not know you clear the first doubt — that the company exists and is who it says. That is where it ends. We have no data of our own showing it multiplies requests, so we do not say it does.

What happens when a request arrives

A buyer fills in a short form with what they need. The request can be public — visible to suppliers in that sector — or directed at your company, in which case only you see it.

You get an e-mail. From there, two pieces of advice worth more than any product feature:

Answer within 24 hours. The buyer sent the same thing to several places. The first to answer seriously starts ahead.

Answer with numbers. Unit price or range, minimum order, lead time, payment terms and incoterm. "It depends on volume", with no range, is the fastest way to lose a quote.

What we do not do

• We do not guarantee that a buyer is solvent or that a supplier will deliver.
• We take no commission on what you sell.
• We do not publish contact details a company never gave us.
• We do not invent figures. If we cannot cite a source, the figure does not go in.

That last rule is why the directory has the companies it has and not ten times as many.

Frequently asked questions

What does it cost?

Being listed and publishing: nothing.

Do I need to speak English?

No. The site is bilingual and product descriptions are translated into English automatically.

Can I publish without a price?

Yes. The listing says "price on request".

How many products can I publish?

The free plan has a limit; the paid ones do not. To start, it is more than enough.

What if I am listed and do not want to be?

Ask for removal from your own listing, and it is removed.

Getting started

Register your company, or first check whether you are already in the directory: if you are, claiming the listing is faster than creating a new one.