Dublin start-up Waybiz.com, a LinkedIn-style B2B marketing tool, has launched with the aim of eliminating online fraud & mistrust in B2B e-commerce industry by posting up verified recommendations from a company's clients. The web service, which is funded by Enterprise Ireland & South Dublin County Enterprise Board, has been in beta-testing since summer 2010 and now has over 20,000 client recommendations from 50,000 businesses in 110 countries.

Waybiz is a clean, information packed and unambigous website which places its users centre stage. It claims to be the world's first B2B portal that connects global buyers and suppliers by first building trust between them through verified clients recommendations & references. It uses information and transparency to empower companies to find, compare, trust and trade with global suppliers by giving access to their clients details, transaction history and customers feedback.

The company was founded by Smurfit Business School graduate Abhinav Chugh (pictured), who wanted to remove the stumbling blocks that prevent businesses from buying and selling on the Internet. Chugh said: "It was while doing my MBA that I got this idea of building trust between global buyers and sellers who want to trade with each other but are afraid to do so because there's no information available about their credibility. I wanted to build a portal which provided users with transparent clients details, transactions history and customer feedbacks helping alleviate such concerns, and build a business community where maximum trust can exist between unknown buyers and suppliers."

Chugh describes Waybiz as an online referral marketing tool, whereby companies can use their existing clients to win new business. Like most social business networks and directories, Waybiz facilitates the posting of client recommendations on user profiles.

But readers of IrishDev.com will recall the story of Irish hotel group Lynch Hotel being caught red handed by RTE's afternoon TV programme, Four Live posting fake reviews (read more). Like reviews, most people show the same sceptism and mistrust for the client or personal testimonial. And rightly so, because research shows that a large percentage of testimonials and endorsements on company websites are fake or fabricated.

Of course, if genuine, the testimonial can have a huge impact on buying decisions and with this in mind Waybiz launched its most successful product to date, Verified Testimonial. To verify clients recommendations, which Chugh says significantly improves consumer confidence leading to an increase of product enquiries & sales by up to 30 times, the company undertakes a process of independently verifying the testimonial by having the 'donor' confirm its originality. Once verified, the testimonial is showcased with a Verified Testimonial seal, which the company may use on its own website and Waybiz profile.

At present, Waybiz's user base primarily comes from Ireland, the UK and Asian countries like India and China. Throughout 2011 it will focus on attracting business in continental Europe, reaching the US market by the year end.

Irish businesses have already started experiencing the benefits of referral marketing through Waybiz. Seamus Kilmartin of Utility Saver says: "My product enquiries increased many times from the potential buyers who viewed our profiles and our client recommendations on the Utility Saver Waybiz profile. It didn't cost us anything and was ultimately a great way of finding new customers."

Waybiz employs three people in Dublin, and has development teams in India and in Malaysia.

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