Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Steel auction site snags investment deal
(phillyBurbs.com) | Pennsylvania News
PHILADELPHIA - A fledging steel auction Web site in suburban Philadelphia has sold a stake to an old-line steel service center, which officials said could whittle away at the industry's resistance to conducting business over the Internet.
SteelSalvor in Narberth said Monday that Dennen Steel Corp. has taken a 'significant' investment in the company. Dennen, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., buys, sells and processes steel. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
'The real value is in the 60 years of relationships they've built with domestic steel mills,' said Scott Shapiro, SteelSalvor's chief executive. 'They will give us an entree into key people.'
Dennen is an 'established industry player that will bring some trusted credibility,' said Bob Parker, an analyst at IDC Manufacturing Insights, a research firm in Framingham, Mass. 'Dennen helps them bring bidders to the table as well as folks that have some excess inventory to move.'
Although several business-to-business Web sites for the steel industry have gone under, SteelSalvor has thrived.
PHILADELPHIA - A fledging steel auction Web site in suburban Philadelphia has sold a stake to an old-line steel service center, which officials said could whittle away at the industry's resistance to conducting business over the Internet.
SteelSalvor in Narberth said Monday that Dennen Steel Corp. has taken a 'significant' investment in the company. Dennen, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., buys, sells and processes steel. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
'The real value is in the 60 years of relationships they've built with domestic steel mills,' said Scott Shapiro, SteelSalvor's chief executive. 'They will give us an entree into key people.'
Dennen is an 'established industry player that will bring some trusted credibility,' said Bob Parker, an analyst at IDC Manufacturing Insights, a research firm in Framingham, Mass. 'Dennen helps them bring bidders to the table as well as folks that have some excess inventory to move.'
Although several business-to-business Web sites for the steel industry have gone under, SteelSalvor has thrived.
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Well spotted. I have seen so many internet steel sites start and fail just as quickly, it's refreshing to see one that might grow. I think one of the real problems is that end users really need to deal with producers and service centres. The result of that, is that internet steel sites are really onlu used by traders.
One of the things consistantly missed by commentators on all things internet is the "fanout" of the internet is huge. Fanout is a technical term originally from digital circuit electronics, meaning how many other chips a single chip can drive. It has come to mean the possible number of interconnections between buyer and seller. Potentially, the internet has relatively large fanout. The problem is to organize the data properly so that if I'm only interested in strip of these measurements, that's all I'm contacted about (or shown if I go to the web site).
I have this same problem with used machinery dealers. Every month I get sent a 600 page book printed on cheap paper filled with 598 pages I couldn't care less about, and 2 pages of slide forming machines. I rasor the two pages out and throw out the rest. With an internet based service, I could see the new listings for slide forming machines and nothing else.
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I have this same problem with used machinery dealers. Every month I get sent a 600 page book printed on cheap paper filled with 598 pages I couldn't care less about, and 2 pages of slide forming machines. I rasor the two pages out and throw out the rest. With an internet based service, I could see the new listings for slide forming machines and nothing else.
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