The hottest steel e-commerce has finally made mone

Steel e-commerce has finally made money! Next, compete for supply chain ecology

in China, more and more traditional industries have tasted the benefits of the digital economy, including steel, a "big man" with a transaction volume of tens of millions of yuan

you can buy Steel at the click of a mouse. Embracing the Internet in the steel industry is not only the general trend, but also has made amazing achievements. It has ranked first in the B2B e-commerce of bulk commodities, and its industry penetration rate has even exceeded that of the retail consumer goods sector dominated by Alibaba and jd.com

it took only five years for steel e-commerce to grow from nothing, from burning money and making losses to making profits, of which 2016 was a watershed. This year, after the great development of "horse racing and enclosure" in 2015, steel e-commerce entered the period of "intensive cultivation" as a whole. Precipitation, value and integration have become the key words of steel e-commerce in 2016

as we all know, B2B is a slow industry, while steel e-commerce has been at the forefront of b2b2.0 in such a short time. At present, the biggest problem is whether the popularity of steel e-commerce is true or false

● this year has finally made a profit.

the opportunity for the rise of steel e-commerce stems from the steel trade crisis in 2012. The financial crisis led to the collapse of credit and the depression of the whole industry. Steel enterprises, dealers and distributors all took the initiative to "touch" and establish their own steel e-commerce platforms

the 2015-2016 report on the development of China's steel e-commerce industry shows that by the end of 2015, China had more than 300 large and small steel e-commerce platforms, accounting for about 48% of the total number of bulk commodity e-commerce enterprises in the country. Among them, the number of new and developing steel e-commerce platforms accounted for 57% in the past two years

taking the e-commerce platform dominated by steel mills as an example, it is noted that since 2016, HANGGANG shares (600126, SH) has disclosed that it plans to inject steel and environmental protection assets at a price of 9.2 billion yuan and get involved in Internet e-commerce; TISCO stainless (000825, SZ) revealed on the interactive platform that it has established its own e-commerce platform; Nangang (600282, SH) is starting the transformation of "steel + environmental protection + Internet e-commerce platform"; Xinxing cast pipe (000778, SZ) and Xiben Shinkansen, a well-known bulk commodity e-commerce platform, jointly invested in steel e-commerce

the number of domestic steel e-commerce companies is booming, but the platforms are uneven and mixed, which is summarized as "only burning money, not making money". The fundamental reason behind this is the problem of the steel industry itself - overcapacity

however, in 2016, steel e-commerce practitioners can finally breathe a sigh of relief. This year, major domestic e-commerce platforms reported profits, and the overall development momentum was good

in 2016, find steel to become the first fully profitable steel e-commerce. Lang Yongchun, senior vice president of Zhaogang, said that the platform had achieved overall profits in the first half of the year

steel bank e-commerce, an enterprise listed on the new third board, turned losses into profits in 2016. According to its latest announcement, the operating revenue in the first three quarters of 2016 reached 26.7 billion yuan, with a net profit of 12.82 million yuan

at present, there are six steel e-commerce companies registered on the new third board. From the results published in the 2016 semi annual report, except for steel bank e-commerce, the other three companies, steel treasure, steel steel and steel house, all have revenues of more than 100 million and net profits ranging from 1 million to 9 million

for the turnaround in 2016, Zhujunhong, chairman of Shanghai Steel Union gangyin e-commerce, explained: "there are several main aspects (reasons), the first of which is the transformation of business model. This year we (Note: 2016) Mainly on consignment, avoiding the risk of rising and falling prices; Secondly, more and more enterprises accept and recognize steel bank, which has made considerable profits through the collection of service fees and the development of supply chain finance; Finally, the establishment of our standardized system and the rapid iteration of it have rapidly improved the operation efficiency of the platform and laid the foundation for the platform to turn losses. " According to its disclosure, steel bank e-commerce has an average of one user placing an order on the platform every 15 seconds; The annual per capita efficiency of steel bank e-commerce will exceed 20000 tons, nearly four times that of traditional human efficiency

as the model matures, will the profitability of steel e-commerce platforms be better in 2017? Zhu Junhong believes that the emergence of profitable enterprises in the field of steel e-commerce does not mean that the "money burning period" of the entire industry has ended. But at least one thing is clear: the "industry logic" of steel e-commerce is feasible, and this road is feasible

yaohongchao, chairman of Sinosteel, a new third board company that is still losing money, said, "it's not that we won't make money now, but that we can't make money now. In the early promotion period, everyone is afraid of losing users, so we can only burn money to occupy the market." According to his prediction, cannon delivered this equipment steel in 2016, and it is expected to make a loss in 2016, but the goal is to double the loss

so, what kind of steel e-commerce is more promising? Zhu Junhong said that there must be scale. Without scale, there is no ability to charge, and it is difficult to build a supply chain

it remains to be seen whether this profit of steel e-commerce can be sustained. However, at present, there are two bottlenecks that cannot be overcome by steel e-commerce. On the one hand, traditional trading habits make both parties unable to adapt; On the other hand, in the context of current credit tightening, credit problems have been plagued by steel enterprises. If you only want to make profits through matching transactions, it is not sustainable. Only by opening up all links of the entire industrial chain through the e-commerce platform can we create profits

● vertical and horizontal, complementary advantages

if we look at the transaction volume and penetration data, the prospect of steel e-commerce is indeed huge

according to the data, in 2014, the national steel e-commerce trading volume was about 75million tons, and the trading volume was about 200billion yuan; In 2015, the steel trading scale of 300 domestic steel E-commerce markets reached 133.48 million tons, with a turnover of 301.1 billion yuan. This data is still expanding in 2016

penetration rate is the fruit of the development of steel e-commerce five years later. With the rebound of steel prices in 2016, the major steel e-commerce trading platforms maintained rapid growth. Specifically, for example, the third quarter report released by steel bank e-commerce on October 20 showed that as of September 30, the cumulative consignment trading volume (settlement volume) of steel bank platform reached 12.854 million tons, an increase of 75.14% compared with the same period last year; It is estimated that the self operated trading volume of seeker steel in the whole year will exceed 13million tons, an increase of more than 50% over last year. As of the first half of 2016, the settlement volume of steel products of European smelters under Baosteel has reached 4.95 million tons

300 steel e-commerce companies crowded into the market, resulting in increased competitive pressure in the industry. At present, the steel e-commerce business has shifted from market information and transactions to deep-seated businesses such as supply chain finance and cloud storage. The new competition will be calculated in seconds and will be more brutal. How to stand out in the stage of fierce competition has become a problem that all steel e-commerce companies need to solve

it is found that the new changes in 2016 also include: under the background of the accelerated development of Internet, many steel e-commerce companies are learning from each other's strengths with a more open and inclusive concept. Because the biggest value of steel e-commerce lies in economies of scale and optimizing the industrial chain, complementing each other's businesses, and working together to cope with more severe challenges in the future

in this wave of open cooperation, the fourth service platform "Ganggang" on the steel industry chain is undoubtedly a dark horse

for example, the performance consumption of plastic granulation in China is almost 1.5% higher than that in the UK. In January 2016, eurometallurgical cloud and steel officially signed an e-commerce alliance strategic cooperation agreement. In this regard, chenderong, general manager of Ouye yunshang, said many times: "we have no competitors, we only have partners"; In April, the subscription of Sinosteel for steel was considered as the complementary leverage of the two steel e-commerce companies of the new third board; In September, steel and steel signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly build a steel e-commerce cooperation alliance

in addition, Minmetals development and Alibaba jointly increased the capital of Minmetals e-commerce, found steel connection Shougang, and steel bank e-commerce jointly with oupuzhi. These measures are trying to lay out in advance for the full production chain service competition

● supply chain finance has become a new bright spot for profit.

steel e-commerce is not simple. Its industrial chain includes nine links, including information, advertising, membership, trading, logistics, processing and distribution, finance, OEM, etc., which can be described as very lengthy

at the time of external vertical and horizontal integration and complementary advantages, iron and steel e-commerce has continuously extended to supply chain finance, yield strength logistics of testing machines, warehousing, processing and other fields in recent years, and the biggest highlight in 2016 is supply chain financial innovation. Steel e-commerce companies have gradually realized that providing financial services will bring considerable profits to the company

compared with other industries, the supply chain characteristics of the steel industry are relatively distinct. First of all, the steel industry is a capital intensive industry. As a basic product with a long life cycle, steel needs huge funds to ensure the smooth production, circulation and transaction. Secondly, in the supply chain of the iron and steel industry, in addition to the core iron and steel production enterprises, there are also many associated enterprises in its upstream and downstream. Under the current economic situation, these enterprises also have a large demand for funds, and they have an urgent demand for financial services, which puts forward higher requirements for financial services in the supply chain

for example, from the joint efforts of the above steel and Sinosteel, we can see that the complementary effect of the two is obvious. As a third-party platform, Sinosteel's customers in supply chain finance can obtain financial support with the help of steel once they have financing needs

similarly, the financial product "credit sale treasure" of Minmetals Ali steel platform received a credit of 2billion yuan from financial institutions last year, and buyer members can enjoy a 30 day purchase account period of up to 1million after passing the audit

after launching three supply chain financial products, steel bank e-commerce launched two financial products and big data services with the nature of surplus money management at the end of 2016. Xu Saizhu, vice president of steel bank e-commerce, said that during the period from January to November 2016, supply chain financial services have made great achievements. At present, the scale of supply chain funds has reached 1.2 billion yuan. At present, the business model of steel bank e-commerce has been transformed into "financing + consignment", and at the same time, it solves the two major problems of users' goods and funds

"in the era of b2b2.0, it must be finance that highlights value, data casts the future, those who get data win the world, and those who keep promises win the future." Xu Saizhu said this at the end of a speech a few days ago

Wang Changhui, chief operating officer of Zhaogang, believes that with big data as credit support, inclusive finance can become a reality. The goal of e-commerce platform is to form a "steel bank" model

in addition to the booming development of supply chain finance in 2016, big data has also become a must for b-end industrial interconnection

for example, through SaaS services (cloud services at the application end), steel bank e-commerce will