E-commerce is expanding--slowly, mostly in chemicals
By Tom Stundza -- Purchasing, 10/21/1999
Commodity purchasing on the World Wide Web is possible by using Web sites of a good number of producers, distributors and metal service centers, and third-party marketplaces. Each type of business-to-business electronic commerce aims to fill a need in the supply chain. But business-to-business commerce in industrial commodities on the Internet is a slow-developing market. While a goodly number of commodity buyers use the Internet to research supply, only 9% of the buyers in Purchasing's latest survey actually buy metals on the Web today, and only 12% buy chemicals and resins.Why the reluctance of commodity buyers to use e-commerce? One buyer who does source chemicals on the Internet, the purchasing manager of a Massachusetts manufacturer of centrifugal pumps and mechanical seals, says he understands the reluctance of his professional buying colleagues to follow suit. "There really aren't enough Web sites online with enough detailed supply and price information to make buyers totally comfortable with electronic commerce as a sourcing strategy," he says.
For example, better than 20% of packaging and converting-related companies say they offer products and services for online transactions, according to a mid-summer survey by information company Packaging Business (www.packagingbusiness.com). However, a much smaller percentage of packaging buyers surveyed actually conduct transactions through the Internet, with many of these purchasing pros saying their purchases are too complicated to handle over the Web so they prefer to deal with suppliers in traditional ways.
Even an apostle of electronic commerce, Alan Gamble at AlloyTech in Salem, N.H., admits "the inherently conservative nature of the commodity business, especially the metals business, means that the promise of business-to-business electronic commerce for commodities is still some years away." Still, he insists that commodities buyers can reduce costs and streamline their purchasing processes through e-commerce if only suppliers will come to realize they can reach huge numbers of buyers through Internet posting of available goods and services.
Many commodity executives are hesitant to commit big capital expenditures into e-commerce until they see bottom-line results by a few pioneers. Their industries have focused on cost-cutting programs recently because selling prices have declined with production surpluses and the Asian economic crisis. "The chemical process industry is in a trough so everything has to be justified when it comes to spending money, and the return on investment hasn't been fully demonstrated yet," says Frank Doorley, a principal in PricewaterhouseCoopers' mining and chemicals group. Also, he says, many of these companies only recently finished installing in-house management information systems--generally a lengthy and expensive process--so some are leery of the promises made on behalf of computer systems.
Still, he and other analysts believe that sooner or later sellers will see benefits in sales online. Similarly, they think buyers in manufacturing industries eventually will see the benefit of buying online--if only to reduce just-in-case inventory, find new suppliers, and make price comparisons. "The Internet enables non-geographical gathering places for buyers and sellers," says Chuck Shih, an e-commerce analyst at Gartner Group in Stamford, Conn. But simply creating a marketplace for an industry isn't enough. According to Shih, "Making catalog items comparable and running auctions--especially for commodity goods--are going to become more common on the Web."
In fact, there are continuing supplier efforts at e-commerce activities. One of the most recent set off a bit of a ruckus in the staid nonferrous marketplace. WMC Ltd.'s new Nickel Internet Marketing System at www.wmc-nickel.com sold a total of 460 metric tons of nickel briquettes online in early September. Four buyers, all in the U.S., ordered nickel online from WMC, either for one-time delivery in September or in monthly lots through December. They agreed to pay premiums over the London Metal Exchange settlement price for nickel on day of sale. These premiums were on the Web site at 4¢/lb for delivery to the Port of Baltimore or 6¢/lb for delivery to warehouses in that city. Suddenly, everybody in the market knew exactly what it cost WMC customers that day to buy the alloying metal.
The Perth, Australia-based mining company already is being touted by metals traders as starting "an Internet revolution in cobalt trading" with its worldwide online sales site of www.wmc-cobalt.com. So the initiation of global Web-based sales with public pricing for such a higher-volume base metal as nickel "is an interesting experiment in communications that we will be watching very carefully," admits Ivor Kirman, marketing director at the Inco Europe division of the world's largest nickel producer.
Toronto-based Inco Ltd. doesn't have plans to jump into online sales yet, Kirman says, but may reevaluate that position later. In fact, some analysts think Inco and other nonferrous metals suppliers may not have a choice in the future. "This Web-based sales activity by WMC is a fledgling move toward greater transparency of commodities," says analyst Jim Lennon at Macquarie Equities in London. "While WMC's e-commerce activities are unlikely to have major short-term impact on global nickel or cobalt marketing, there is no downside for the company's openness on price, sales specifications, and delivery terms."
Lennon says those traders and other suppliers who are saying that WMC's Web sites are simply a new form of communication, and not a move into e-commerce, "are only kidding themselves." Lennon maintains that "if this e-commerce activity works for WMC and its customers, other producers will follow." In fact, while most online commerce in industrial commodities now is done through third-party marketplaces or online auctions, several commodity-producing companies and distribution firms are dipping their toes into the e-commerce ocean.
Chemicals lead the way
This especially is true in the chemicals and resins industry, which was described in a recent Anderson Consulting report as "a petri dish for e-commerce ventures." The consulting company says that almost all of the top 50 chemical firms are devising an Internet presence and appointing directors of e-commerce. Chemicals and resins can be shipped relatively easily and cheaply, as long as they are packaged properly.
"The chemical industry is beginning to figure out that e-commerce has some strategic implications," agrees Fred Buehler, director for e-business at Eastman Chemical in Kingsport, Tenn., which reckons it is the first chemical producing company to initiate e-commerce capability across its entire product line. "The goal at Eastman is to adopt this technology to improve the ways we serve our customers, and to provide the tools that add value to our customers."
Buehler agrees with those analysts who suggest that process industries--ranging from petrochemicals to steelmaking to paper manufacturing--are so capital intensive and focused on manufacturing that they have been laggards in the implementation of such information technologies as business-to-business commerce on the Web. Still, there is no question that electronic commerce in commodities is expanding. Richard Melnicoff, an associate partner in San Francisco of Andersen Consulting's electronic commerce business group, says producers of industrial materials have recognized that the Internet will allow them "to expand the choices they offer all customers and tailor their individual offerings more precisely to what given customers want." He contends this "will have a huge impact on how customer-driven firms in the future will do market research, design products, plan and implement service, and handle sales promotions."
And there will be benefits for buyers, Melnicoff says, "because it will give them access to objective, reliable information on product quality, price, availability, and alternative sources." He suggests that e-commerce "will be a revolution for buyers, who will find it easier and cheaper to obtain comprehensive information about suppliers, products, and market pricing."
William Weinert, purchasing manager for Rexam Closures in Evansville, Ind., says that "conducting business electronically is saving us time, money, and record keeping." He was a beta, or pilot, customer during the development of the new Eastman Chemicals e-commerce site and found that it helped reduce internal paperwork with no blips in the delivery of ordered chemicals. "We have used the product search tool, obtained data sheets, placed orders, and reviewed the history of our orders," says Weinert, "and found that it's a very good e-commerce system for us."
Eastman Chemical has had full electronic business capability at its www.eastman.com Web site for registered customers in the U.S. and Canada since late July.
Roger Mowen, VP, says about 200 of Eastman's customers have signed up for the e-commerce service, and notes that $10 million worth of business had been done electronically by late September. Mowen says that Eastman expects to offer a pilot program in English to customers and distributors in Asia, Europe, and Latin America by the end of the fourth quarter. And, in the first quarter of 2000, Eastman will offer the service in eight languages, including Chinese, to all customers and distributors.
"Our objective is to make it easier for our customers to do business with us," says Buehler. "The e-commerce site is a complimentary, online service that will give our customers convenient access to the information they require at the precise moment they need it, from account status to product and technical data." The Web site allows buyers to review account information; access Eastman's product information catalog; place and revise orders; obtain the status of orders; track railcar shipments; review certificates of analysis; request technical data, material, environmental, and safety data sheets; and obtain technical help.
"There was a significant and often understated investment in developing a start-up e-commerce Web site," admits Buehler. "Atop that, what goes online at first is just a start." He says that "the eastman.com e-commerce system that we have deployed is not the ultimate solution, and it will progress further as we hear from the people who use it." Buehler insists, however, that there is potential for "significant financial success from business-to-business Web-based commerce, as long as the technology continues to evolve and expand to fulfill the needs of the buyers."
Other major chemical producers have some form of e-commerce in operation. Air Products and Chemicals allows registered customers to place and track orders from an online catalog at www.airproducts. com. Air Products & Chemicals also sells industrial gases and provides technical support on the Internet, as does BOC Gases Americas at www.boc.com/gases.
Other chemical producers simply offer product and other information relating to ordering on their sites. Some examples: The basf Web site at www.basf.com connects to technical data sheets and related information on products available in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, and lets registered buyers check inventory, analyze use, and calculate forecasts. Dow Chemical at www.dow.com, Arco Chemical at www.arcochem.com, and PPG Industries at www.ppg.com have some product specs on the Internet so buyers can look at the products and place orders.
Among the few metals producers engaged in e-commerce activity are steelmaker Chaparral Steel of Midlothian, Texas, at www.txi.com/steel and coated-metal processor USS-Posco Industries in Pittsburg, Calif., at www.uss-posco.com. Chaparral's brand-new MillNet system, for example, allows customers to access structural steel product availability, market-driven pricing, account information, tracing of shipments, and estimated time of delivery from its mills in Midlothian, Texas, and Richmond, Va. Credit arrangements, invoicing, freight rates, and manifests also are available online.
There are some chemical distributors with e-commerce operations as well. The most active is Van Waters & Rogers of Kirkland, Wash., which now has a detailed e-commerce site at www.vwr-inc.com that allows the firm's "eBusiness Partners" to conduct business over the Internet in a secure environment. Van Waters & Rogers entered e-commerce somewhat gingerly last year with a special Web site (www.pricedtomove.com) in which it lists surplus and slightly out-of-date chemicals available at a discount. Actual sales here are made via e-mail or phone. However, Van Waters & Rogers' own Web address now allows for real-time pricing and order entry; provides material safety data sheets and certificates of analysis; tracks order tracking; and keeps purchasing histories on its full line of monomers and intermediates, acids, surfactants and solvents, organic and inorganic salts, inhibitors, stabilizers and additives, and process chemicals.
Many other chemical distributors offer detailed information on product and capabilities, including Ashland Chemical, the largest chemical distributor in North America (www.ashchem.com); and Chemcentral (www.chemcentral.com).
In metals distribution, the EMJ (Earle M. Jorgensen Co.) service center chain based in Brea, Calif., and the huge Metals USA distribution conglomerate based in Texas are developing catalog-based e-commerce Web sites for imminent launch. In fact, James A. Collins, vice president of sales and marketing for Metals USA's Heavy Carbon Steel Group, now will head up the parent company's new e-commerce business unit on a full-time basis. In the newly created post of vice president, e-commerce, for Metals USA, Collins will be looking to leverage the company's experience with its existing integrated supply contracts for the U.S. Defense IndustrialSupply Center, which is administered under Metals USA's proprietary Internet-based electronic commerce system, with other customers. Eventually, e-commerce sales will involve the firm's Heavy Carbon, Flat-rolled Steel, and Specialty Metals groups.
However, much smaller Admiral Steel a sheet and strip service center in Alsip, Ill., is online already. The firm's On-LineStore at www.admiralsteel.com lists every item in stock--and the current market price--for online ordering, and allows the buyer to check off shipping preferences. One problem with e-commerce for metals is that they are heavy, bulky commodities that can incur substantial freight costs and handling charges. Plus, there is a history of face-to-face sales for production metals to resolve sometimes-prickly technical issues. Another issue is that those few metals producers or distributors who sell directly on the Web, sell only steel and then only a small percentage of the thousands of steel mill products available in the marketplace.
Marketplaces rule the roost
Although commodity manufacturers and distributors are increasingly making their Web sites e-commerce-capable, most of the e-commerce activity to date is centered in third-party marketplaces for steel, chemicals, plastic resins, and plastic and paper packaging products. A major impact of these electronic marketplaces, says professor Yannis Bakos at the University of California, Irvine, is that they typically reduce the search costs that buyers must pay to obtain information about prices and product offerings available in these markets.
"These electronic marketplaces are among the most significant business channels the era of e-commerce has produced," agrees Jeetu Patel, the VP of research at Doculabs, a Chicago e-commerce advisory firm. "The marketplaces bring together multiple buyers and sellers in a single application, where they can interact, negotiate prices and quantities, and allow free-market economics to rule." Patel says that these e-business marketplaces "simplify trading relationships, reduce the friction of traditional commerce, and let suppliers reach new customers."
In a nutshell: Electronic marketplaces are third-party firms that take fragmented markets, draw together buyers and sellers in a specific industry, and help them do deals. These marketplaces are growing in popularity, Patel says, because "they appeal to very well-defined buyers and sellers of metals, chemicals, packaging products, and other commodities." Shih, e-commerce analyst at Gartner Group, estimates about 300 of these marketplaces--also called "vertical portals"--are operating or under development today. By mid-2000, he predicts there will be 1,000 of them, and 7,500 will be running by 2002. "There are so many different markets out there that are fragmented to begin with," Shih says. "These market makers take these markets and bring buyers and sellers together."
Representing a range of industries, each of today's electronic marketplaces for industrial commodities has a distinct focus:
- PlasticsNet in Chicago at www.plasticsnet.com allows purchasers to buy more than 100 different resins, compounds, and polymers from numerous suppliers, including Bayer Corp., Polymer Resources, and Ashland Chemical. Buyers also can use the PlasticsNet Exchange to get auction-style pricing on limited supply products. The Web site also has available ancillary materials and reinforcements, auxiliary equipment and systems, industrial supplies, primary processing machinery, rebuilt equipment, and plant services available for purchase online.
- e-Chemicals of Ann Arbor, Mich., at www.e-chemicals.com, has established online catalog sales operations for industrial chemicals. Buyers can search for chemical sources by using both brand and generic names, by manufacturer, by explaining the end-use industry or application, or by using product category or chemical family.
- CheMatch of Houston at www.chematch.com provides a 24-hour global trading platform for producers, distributors, traders, and buyers of high-volume, bulk commodity petrochemicals. The site's product postings include: astm specification, freight costs, price per gallon or metric ton, and delivery availability. At present, CheMatch offers members--i.e., registered buyers and sellers--the ability to trade benzene, mixed xylenes, para xylene, orthoxylene, toluene, methanol, mtbe, and styrene monomer.
- ChemConnect of San Francisco at www.chemconnect.com now keys on large-scale sales of unrefined chemicals by letting buyers and sellers conduct commerce via an open auction.
- Chemdex of Palo Alto, Calif., (www.chemdex.com) is selling laboratory chemicals and is creating a market for chemical and biological reagents.
- Paper Exchange of Boston at www.paperexchange.com bills itself as "the leading e-commerce solution for buying and selling paper products and equipment online." It markets containerboard and boxboard to converters and boxmakers, newsprint and fine papers to users, and pulp and fiber to paper mills by selling on a bid basis.
- MetalSite of Pittsburgh at www.metalsite.com, the biggest e-commerce marketplace for surplus steel is open to all buyers and sellers who want to conduct business on the Internet. The site hosts the QuickBid auction, and soon will expand to include the MetalSite Price Book for prime products, supporting a price list, contract pricing, and online negotiations.
- Metal Suppliers Online in Salem, N.H., at www.metalsuppliers.online, allows metals buyers to search for and order from approximately 17,000 metal products from 90 suppliers. Now under development is a metals auction.
- e-Steel of New York at www.e-steel.com uses a "SteelDirect" feature in which buyers may send inquiries to one supplier, several preferred suppliers, or to a universe of potential suppliers. They can search for product that meets their requirements and enter into direct one-to-one negotiation with the supplier online. When both parties are satisfied with the terms, a deal is concluded.
Different sites, different niches
PaperExchange, which also is known online as PEx, "has experienced consistent increases in site activity since it opened up its exchange from containerboard to other major paper grades in May," according to Robert K. Kraft, chairman of the Kraft Group (and the New England Patriots football team) and the Web site's founding investor. He says the site now has well over 1,500 registered members in 65 countries, and notes the pulp and paper industry's only paper and packaging exchange "has completed multiple transactions in all major grades of paper" in less than six months.
"PaperExchange represents the first major milestone in a fundamental revolution, just now under way, which should dramatically alter the way paper is bought and sold over the next decade," says Ray Funderburk, marketing director. "By aggregating buyers and sellers from around the world, we believe PaperExchange offers previously impossible efficiencies to both buyers and sellers."
e-Chemicals Inc., the first e-commerce-based distributor of industrial chemicals via the Internet, also has become the first marketplace to be accepted into socma, the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association. socma represents the interests of more than 300 member companies, encompassing every segment of the chemical industry from small specialty producers to large multinational corporations. "With the emergence of the Internet as a new distribution channel for the chemical industry, we have taken a leadership position as the first e-commerce-based member of socma," says Jim Alampi, president and CEO of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based e-Chemicals. "As a leader, e-Chemicals is dedicating resources and making the commitment to our customers and suppliers that our business practices meet the highest standards found in the chemical industry."
e-Chemicals sells and delivers industrial chemicals in small-quantity orders through strategic agreements with such suppliers as Huntsman DuPont Specialty Chemicals, Elf Atochem North America, Noranda DuPont, Scheel, Sybron Chemicals, and Witco. The firm's commerce-enabled Web site is electronically linked with Yellow Freight to provide logistics services and reliable deliveries. SunTrust Banks processes credit, collections, and accounts receivable. At present, e-Chemicals sells salts, scale inhibitors, sealants, silicates, solvents, stabilizers, surfactants, terpenes, thermal fluids, and thickeners.
By contrast, CheMatch bills itself as "the first anonymous interactive Internet-based trading exchange for bulk commodity chemicals." This Web site brings buyers and sellers of standard bulk commodity chemicals together to engage in real-time confidential trades. "This makes it possible to execute significantly more trades faster than the traditional phone/fax system," explains Carl McCutcheon, CheMatch CEO. Since inception in February of 1998, CheMatch has facilitated the sales of $100 million worth of products. McCutcheon cites a "recent record trading day" in which 90,000 barrels of product valued at $3 million were transacted.
Matt Frye, VP, believes that CheMatch offers "a unique value proposition to the chemical industry" because it's system allows for anonymous negotiations and trading, "which provides market transparency and true market pricing." Under the CheMatch online system," he adds, "buyers and sellers can use the system for instant market-based price discovery, and anonymity allows users to move in the market without moving that market."
David Perry, CEO of Chemdex, says that the online company has agreements to act as a middleman for 100 catalog marketers of laboratory chemicals. Suppliers set prices for chemicals sold through Chemdex, and none has yet set prices higher than what's listed in their catalogs. As was reported earlier this year, Perry contends the Internet market for lab chemicals has the potential to grow to $4 billion in annual sales.
ChemConnect has been running Web-based bulletin boards to support bulk chemical sales for four years, accounting for more than $15 billion in transactions. These transactions have involved large--i.e., tanker-sized--shipments of raw chemicals bought and sold by such major industry players as Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Exxon Chemical, and Mobil Chemical. ChemConnect this year expanded into an open commodity chemical exchange, which now has 10,000 members who post an average of 2,500 orders every month. John Beasley, ChemConnect's CEO and co-founder, says, "the exchange represents a revolution for the chemical industry because it creates sourcing efficiencies and speeds up transactions."
Just last month, Eastman Chemical made an equity investment in ChemConnect, which Beasley says "represents the first in a series of major chemical industry endorsements of ChemConnect's pioneering role in facilitating online business-to-business transactions for the $1.6 trillion worldwide chemicals trade." Shaun Andrikopoulos, director of Internet research for investment house Deutsche Banc Alex Brown, adds that "inviting major companies to invest in the World Chemical Exchange, and participate in the Technology Roundtable, is a good example of ChemConnect's innovation in online chemical trading." He contends that "by allowing industry leaders to become stakeholders, ChemConnect is demonstrating its clear willingness to work with buyers and sellers worldwide.''
ChemConnect's World Chemical Exchange complements and expands on e-commerce capabilities for chemical industry companies of all sizes, notes Andrikopoulos, because it moves beyond proprietary company Web sites and existing catalog aggregator and auction e-commerce models. Atop that, "industry participation is critical to the success of new online world e-markets," says ChemConnect's Beasley. He contends that participation by Eastman and other chemical firms "complement existing sales channels, offer all participants an opportunity to expand their market reach and get competitive prices for their products, and establish new relationships between suppliers and buyers worldwide.''
Analyst Varda Lief of Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., says Web-based exchanges "are a good fit at the commodity level of the supply chain, where pricing is based mostly on supply and demand, as long as the exchange remains a neutral third party." These exchanges already have taken hold in the electric and natural gas markets, because prices there already fluctuate with supply and demand.
Where is metal going?
Spot--i.e., non-contract--sales of steel, for example, account for 45%-50% of annual sales. Distributors, service centers, processors, and traders handle sales. That's the competition for e-commerce marketplaces. And it may be hard for these neutral parties that facilitate transactions to become a supply force, says Adam J. Fein, a consultant at Pembroke Consulting in Philadelphia. "Metals are highly freight- and time-to-receipt-sensitive products, maintaining the need for local stocking," he says. "Service centers provide a variety of value-added, customer-specific processing functions. In contrast, online companies don't provide these kinds of functions. These companies do not take possession or ownership of product, do not provide technical support, and do not perform value-added processing functions."
Thus, continues Fein, "the online companies will pose little threat to a service center's traditional business." He adds that these Web sites also add little value for continuous supply relationships between mills, distributors, and manufacturers. "Given the importance of supply availability, most major steel users have long-term supply arrangements based on reliability and consistency, not exclusively on unit price."
Still, there are metals e-commerce marketplaces with exchange/auction operations online or under development for near-term launch.
Only a year old, the MetalSite online marketplace has grown from three steel mill sellers in 1998 (Weirton Steel, LTV Steel, and Steel Dynamics) to 4 steel producers (now including Bethlehem Steel) and 13 service centers (including Ryerson Tull, the largest in North America). And the site has increased monthly tonnage commitments from 20,000 tons in late 1998 to more than 120,000 tons/month, representing $35-$40 million in available product. Patrick B. Stewart, president and CEO, says "MetalSite pioneered electronic commerce in the metals industry, changing forever the way metal products are purchased and sold by establishing the industry's first online marketplace for surplus product and developing the QuickBid auction, the fastest way to locate and bid for metals on the Web."
Now, MetalSite is developing first online steel products catalog, with implementation scheduled for the fourth quarter of 1999. "The catalog, designed to each sellers' unique offerings, will support a price list, contract pricing and online negotiations for accepting, rejecting and countering offers," says Stewart. "We are always looking to the future, and our vision for the new millennium is to continue to build solutions for the entire supply chain, linking all buyers and sellers online, whether you're selling iron ore or purchasing steel studs--thereby creating the new 'value chain.'"
Michael S. Levin, Chairman & CEO of e-Steel agrees. "Electronic commerce allows choice and one-to-one relationships that give birth to new value creation options. My analysis of the steel business has led me to believe that e-commerce is central to 'new value' creation by mills and distributors." Levin reckons that "the amount of business that ultimately will move to the Web will likely surpass even today's wildest speculations because the Internet offers the opportunity to improve customer satisfaction."
Shortly after e-Steel opened its exchange in early September, processor and distributor Worthington Steel purchased prime production-grade hot-rolled sheet in coils from trader Cargill Ferrous International. Levin says, "this marked the first time that prime steel was specified, sourced, negotiated, and purchased online via an Internet-enabled neutral marketplace." Through e-Steel's "SteelDirect" feature, buyers may send inquiries to one supplier, several preferred suppliers, or to a universe of potential suppliers. They can search for product that meets their requirements and enter into direct one-to-one negotiation with the supplier online. When both parties are satisfied with the terms, a deal is concluded.
Another metals-for-sale vehicle called MetalShopper is online at www.metalshopper.com. This site features listings of prime and excess metal provided by mill producers, service centers, machine shops, fabricators, and importers. Marc Stolfi, marketing director, says the site "has been designed to give large and small buyers a simple, efficient way to locate and buy a wide range of metal products." MetalShopper offers a place where service centers and others can list and potentially sell excess and prime material. It has listings for aluminum, brass, copper, nickel alloys, steel and steel alloys, stainless steel, and titanium secondary materials.
The firm's Web site also has expanded beyond metals by creating an Industrial & Metals Bookstore, which links to other sites where other goods--from office products to plastics, from machine tools to travel services--can be purchased. "We've not only saved the business buyer from surfing from site to site, we've saved them time by preorganizing the products they need," Stolfi says.
What began as an informational Web site has turned into an e-commerce vehicle at MetalSales at www.metalsales.com. The site still allows users to tell potential suppliers what they want to buy in various grades--rectangular tube, pipe, angle, coil, square tube, plate, flat bar, round tube, wide-flange beams, channels, bar grating, and round bars. But it now also lists products available for sale; and the asking price, for both prime and secondary material. Buyers interested in buying specific products can call specified 800 number or send a fax or e-mail with the specific product number to initiate a buy. The site also provides a hard-to-find location system of overstocked, damaged, or discontinued items.
MetalWorld is an online information-trading site at www.metalworld. com, offering free buy/sell/trade listings in various categories such as copper, brass and bronze, aluminum, magnesium, zinc, tin, lead, iron, steel, and exotic metals. Listings are carried for 15 days in bulletin-board style. If interested, a buyer or seller can use e-mail to receive more information or negotiate a sale.
Electronics sites lead the way
It may be taking a while for Web sites that sell basic raw materials to get off the ground in the brave new world of e-commerce, but the same cannot be said for sites that deal with electronic components and other high-tech products. Here's a sampling of sites for buyers of electronic components, many of which are capable of e-commerce:
www.aice.com (American IC Exchange)
www.arrow.com (Arrow Electronics)
www.class-ic.com (Classic Components Corp.)
www.digikey.com (Digi-Key Corp.)
www.FastParts.com (FastParts.com)
www.kentcompnents.com (Kent Electronics)
www.necx.com (NECX)
www.NetBuy.com (NetBuy)
www.newark.com (Newark Electronics)
www.partminer.com (PartMiner)
www.samsungsemi.com (Samsung Semiconductor)
www.samtec.com (Samtec USA)
www.virtualchip.com (Virtual Chip Exchange)
www.wedoems.com (Excelsior Electronic Manufacturing Services)
Energy sites for buyers
Confused about what is going on in the about-to-be-deregulated energy industry? Check out these Web sites for more information:
www.aceee.org--The American Council for Energy-Efficient Economy is a non-profit agency dedicated to advancing energy efficiency. The site offers consumer guides, advice, and much more.
www.energy.com--This site offers news and information about deregulation and can help you choose a supplier, find the right services, and offers advice on how to save energy. The site also features an energy discussion room.
www.ase.org--The Alliance to Save Energy is a nonprofit organization of business, government, environmental, and consumer leaders who promote the efficient and clean use of energy. Their site offers news and advice and folks can download energy efficiency plans.
www.electricity.org--This site provides news on deregulation and is geared toward helping people understand the new generation, transmission, and billing of energy (electricity and gas) within North America.
www.energycentral.com--This site features news, reports, and other information about what's happening in the electric power industry.
www.doe.gov--The U.S. Department of Energy's Web site offers news about the latest technology and environmental resources as well as educational resources.
www.eei.org--The Edison Electric Institute an association of U.S. shareholder-owned electric companies, international affiliates, and industry associates worldwide. The site offers news about deregulation and other energy-related topics.
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