Steel, can you trade online?

Steel, can you do online trading? A website is doing this: upstream to help steel mills and large steel traders to sell goods, downstream to help the buyers to buy the purchase information. The company's name is "Find steel NET": Trading Business-to-business platform, help sellers sell goods faster, help buyers find the right source.

May 2012, look for the steel net officially on-line. The founder of Wang Dong originally in a steel spot search for the internet company as a professional manager. Steel industry is different from other industries, due to product refinement, product prices, goods and other information search can not be completed through Baidu, can only rely on professional search engines. Wang Dong, the CEO, believes that, in addition to professional search, the site should also do something more valuable: not only to be a provider of information, but also to be deeply involved in the transaction between the buyer and seller. But the idea did not get the boss's approval, so he and two partners Lao, Wang Changhui together to Shanghai to create a steel network.

"Matchmaking business" between buyers and sellers

A lot of people may have a question: is it better to trade on a commodity like steel? Why put it on the line?

First understand the current situation of the steel market under the wire: Online transactions, steel from steel mills to the terminal need to go through five links: steel mills-large agents (also known as long Association)-middlemen-buyers-terminal. In these five links, the middleman of this link profit rate is the highest, often from the hands of large agents to get the goods, and then a substantial increase to sell to buyers. Especially in the steel industry boom, because of the demand, many small buyers are often in the most disadvantaged position, money can not buy goods. The whole offline trading chain is not a fair and healthy ecological chain. When the steel industry is booming, it is a seller's market; Among them, middlemen sometimes also store goods for certain types of steel. Hoarding goods so that middlemen have been profiteering, steel mills and the interests of the buyer has been greatly damaged.

To break the unhealthy trading environment below the line, we need to build an advanced model that the Internet can achieve. Wang Dong five links under the line into: Steel--B1 (the line of large agents) Z (the original middleman, is now looking for steel net)--B2 (original buyer)-terminal. and the original line of middlemen are looking for steel nets this platform instead.

Although looking for steel nets instead of the original middleman, but it does not earn profits, for example, a buyer commissioned to find a steel net to buy a certain model of steel, if the upstream agent to the price is 4000 yuan/ton, to find a steel net or to 4000 yuan to the buyer, does not increase prices. Find a steel net to buy a quote to a buyer, a private transaction between the buyer and the seller, so that the ecosystem is more transparent and healthy. In this chain, three parties are beneficiaries: the seller by looking for steel net to clean up the stock, buy a house by looking for steel net at their acceptable price to buy the goods, looking for steel net in facilitating the transaction at the same time obtained the seller's commission.

"The original many middlemen is small z, we are using the Internet to put a lot of irregular small z to eliminate, the future of the steel net will be a big Z." ”

At present, buyers can find their own steel online to publish the purchase information, can also be commissioned to find steel nets, both ways are free. Sellers can publish their own resource list (quote), can also be commissioned to find steel network sales. For specific commissions, as the types of services are different, the agreement signed by both parties shall prevail. Looking for steel mesh and steel search site is different: Search is simply a collection of information, and find steel network in the convergence of information, provide site search, but also deeply involved in the transaction between the buyers and sellers. From this point of view, looking for a steel net more like a reservation ticket Ctrip, is a platform-type service provider.

Make the ecosystem transparent

Although the establishment of less than a year, but now looking for steel net daily of steel trading has exceeded 10000 tons, turnover of more than 50 million yuan, every day from the seller's commission has about 10,000 yuan.

When asked to find the core competitiveness of the steel network, founder Wang Dong said first is the team, followed by data mining capabilities. Find Steel Network team currently a total of 82 people, in addition to a few technical team leader, the other people basically from the line of large steel trading company, in the industry has a wealth of experience. Wang said that from entrepreneurship to now, the overall turnover rate is only about 15%. He said that the reason for the low turnover rate is to find the steel net of the high salary system, he thinks the right salary is easier to find the right person.

Data mining, Wang Dong, for example, when the website just on line, when the system is not mature enough, the user experience is not very good, trading volume growth has been very slow; in August 2012, they online the second generation of TP system, the month's turnover on the breakthrough tens of millions. belong to E-commerce, but the common indicators of the business, such as UV, PV, Wang Dong never look. "We value real trading volumes, which is the most direct and more real." ”

Steel this commodity, Wang Dong said, compared to clothing, fast consumer goods, it is easier to audit. Because the large steel traders in the steel mills there are basic can be found, if the sale of problematic products, their agent qualification may be canceled by steel mills. This is obviously not worth the candle. What needs to be audited is B2, the purchaser. Because a lot of purchasing chamber of Commerce to inquire about the price, originally agreed to deal, the last moment, "Flight list." For the frequent "flying single" B2, find steel Network A set of punishment mechanism, in order to protect the upstream B1, so that the entire ecosystem return to integrity.

In essence, looking for steel net is a "Free + charge" mode: For buyers free of charge, the seller charged a transaction commission. For buyers, whether commissioned or to find their own goods, to find steel nets are free;

As a result of looking for steel net to buy both sides of the information are all transparently released online, if the buyer to bypass the steel net directly to find the seller, then how to do? Look for the steel net is to do so: for those entrusted to find the buyer, to reach a deal, the buyer needs to take the screenshot of the money to find steel net, this is the important voucher of the transaction, is also looking for steel net to collect the certificate of the Seller Commission; for their own buyers, because most of the purchase volume is small, in the search for goods and not too much bargaining power, so a single buyer is not respected sellers. In addition, due to the particularity of the steel industry, are to take the first payment after delivery. The disadvantage of the buyer in this link is more obvious, in the case of not seeing the goods, the first payment is often risky.

For buyers, since both models are free, and the benefits of the Commission is far greater than their own to find the goods, then, commissioned is their best choice. So at present to find steel buyers or commissioned by the main mode.

Founded less than a year, to find steel network has been two rounds of venture capital. June 29, 2011, Shanghai Steel Joint's "My Steel Network" landed in Shenzhen gem, the total market value of 1.1 billion yuan, this is China's first listed steel industry business-to-business website, in addition to "search steel net" and so on. This gives the steel business-to-business website more room for imagination, but the next step is to break through.

For why the investment to find steel net, the big fund partner Li Yingjie said there are two main reasons: first, the external environment, the second is to find a steel network team. External environment refers to the "my steel Net" listing; As for the steel net team, founder Wang Dong understand both steel and Internet, team members are mostly offline steel market sales Elite, in search of steel network can give full play to their expertise.

Wang said the wind to find the steel net development speed did not put forward too high demand, but let them slow down a little bit. Currently looking for steel nets by virtue of nearly a year of steady, has stabilized the largest steel network distribution center in Shanghai. "The next step is to make the Yangtze River delta a good place on the basis of a firm Shanghai." "Wang Dong thinks that looking for steel net is essentially a service-oriented company, and it's good to be slow."