Author: Raza Qasim
In business, buying and selling are the two sides of the same coin. It is always complicated for businesses to find a distinct but, right place to acquire everything they need for their business.
What if I say that the place I want to show has some additional advantages as; saving you cost, time and resource with that even, lets you have the opportunity of penetration of your products or buying message to the entire world?
Sounds Interesting?
I am sure it does!
During working in the international market for my clients from the different region of the world I found that there are some B2B E-Commerce Platforms that are providing exactly the same services as we wished for the business. The concept of these companies is based on Meta-Market.
Well…
No need to worry here, you are not the only one because most of the people are not very much familiar about with this terminology.
So, let’s have the most regular and easiest of the definitions of Meta-Market
A web-based market covering all the products of an industry; there can be single or multiple industries in one market.
For further clarification, let’s ask with Prof. Philip Kotler:
“Meta-marketing is a composition of processes involved in attempting to develop or maintain exchange relations involving services & products, organizations, persons, place or causes. It is an attempt to widen the horizons of marketing by covering non-business organizations. Like the marketing-mix of business organization, non-business organizations do, have their marketing mix”
(Kotler, 2015)
Construction is a very big industry like others, numbers of SMIEs (Small-Medium Industries and Enterprises) are associated with this industry and each industry has multiple product lines. Due to the wide range of products lines, it is always difficult to find right supplier for the construction project that can fulfill all the requirements.
What if you need to fulfill the requirements of steel, electrical wiring and wood for a construction project?
You will contact or even visit different markets of steel, electrical wires and wood suppliers respectively and, that will consume a lot of resources, like resources of energy, time, and money!
And that are, few sub-industries that are necessary for the construction or, you can say, without these products, the construction industry is incomplete.
BUT HOLD ON...
Everyone from this industry already knows about it…!
So what’s new over here?
What’s the solution or benefit for the industry?
Well personally I don’t have anything fruitful for the industry BUT I can give you the address of the market which is known as Meta-Market for the construction industry.
The Magic for Construction Industry
Construction projects are one of the biggest projects in the world that required large-scale human resource, capital and numerous types of materials.
What do you think procurement of all these materials at right time, at right cost and with the right quality and, don’t forget… at the same place, is really an easy job for the procurement department?
The answer is, absolutely NO. . .!
Just have a look on some essential materials for the construction project:
Following are some essential material for construction projects:
|
1 |
Steel |
Sand/Soil |
Cement |
Block/bricks |
|
2 |
Tiles |
Marble |
Natural Stones |
Aluminum |
|
3 |
Wooden products |
Paint |
Electrical systems and equipment |
Lights |
|
4 |
Sanitary wares |
Toilet wares |
Kitchen wares |
Glass |
|
5 |
Surface finishing material |
Plumbing fixtures and equipment |
Polish material |
Now you will see the Magic of a Meta-Market:
As Project Manager or Procurement Manager of a Construction Project, let’s visit our very own Meta-Market; i.e. Tradekey, the most useful one in construction industry.
Surprisingly you will find each and every material that you need. Cost from $0.01 to $10,000, additional multiple suppliers for single a product from different countries. We can get quotations from all of them, we can easily place sample orders (free/paid). On a lighter note, I can say that negotiation with multiple suppliers from different countries is just like you are talking with your friends on a social media group.
Ms. Evelyn, B2B Manager of a Chinese Construction SME, Fujian Huian Haobo Stone Company Limited, mentioned that
“B2B portal or E-Commerce is a place who directs you with the buyer, it eliminates the middle man chain between supplier and buyer. In international business, there is more than one middle man who charge commission and ultimately the price of the products increases“
According to Mr. Ammar Nasir Khan, Operation Manager of construction industry domain in one of the leading B2B Portal, mentioned that in the last 5 years he has experienced that
“Most of the members are working with us for last 5 to 7 years because of one reason “Big ROI with the Lowest Investment. We have a team of industry experts and consultants and they are trained enough to make your business successful. Meta-Market is the future of Construction industry because, in TradeKey, the suppliers in this industry saw a yearly increase of 112.30% in their revenue generation since 2012 and not only that, they are able to increase their per order export value by 42.48% each year!”
By all the above discussion what will be the definition of meta-market by the way?
In very simple words:
“Meta-market is a place where buyers and suppliers interact at a single place for wide range of products with each other for the business“
In the light of this definition, is there any doubt that procurement personnel can get any benefit with meta-market without the presence of the suppliers?
This is the best part of Meta-Market that it is providing equal business opportunities to the buyers and the suppliers.
How about you visit this meta-market, a utopia of construction and similar industries?
Get your free pass for this market. Just fill out the below form:
