A global commercial and industrial trading platform, Plusto.com, is revealing fresh B2B e-commerce trading methods, says Adriaan Gie, founder of SAHometraders.co.za.
Gie created the concept to assist companies in managing their inventories, reduce costs, open new markets and find new suppliers.
“The e-commerce sector has seen a boom over the last decade, but B2B commerce has not taken off in the way that B2C commerce has done,” says Gie. “This is because most B2B sites fail to provide the scale of information and levels of security and functionality required to operate at a global level.”
Plusto.com features a system where users are networked with service providers across 7 500 company types. The Web site has monthly industry auctions, a cataloguing system covering 30 industries and 49 000 product categories, and CargoKey, which is a freighting calculator that has cross-border freight quotations. MyPlusto allows companies to manage their trading activities in one place and has a verification and feedback system.
Gie says in the long-term, Plusto has a role to play in the growth of world commerce. In the short-term, as the credit crunch evolves into a cash crunch, there is a specific benefit for companies looking to minimise their working capital requirements.
“Our research shows that in 2007 the top 150 companies on the JSE carried daily excess inventories totalling ZAR119 billion, costing them a potential ZAR280 million a week or ZAR14.6 billion a year in interest payments. Those sort of levels might be viable in an environment of strong economic growth and easy access to capital, but with most forecasts now pointing to a significant global economic slowdown combined with tight credit conditions, companies are going to have to find ways to extract as much cash as possible from their operations.”
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