Australian metals producer WMC said on Monday that selling metals via its Web site has had a significant impact on costs, and the company which launched Internet sales of cobalt and nickel in 1999 has now started selling copper.
"Processing costs for transactions has decreased dramatically, premiums have been better than we anticipated, and access to our customers has improved," Peter Johnston, executive general manager for nickel, WMC, said at a Metal Bulletin nickel seminar in Helsinki.
"We have saved about 50 percent on our transaction costs (for cobalt). We did it to make money, but there was also a lack of transparency in the market," he said.
WMC produces around 800 tonnes of cobalt a year as a by-product, all of which it now sells at outright prices via its Web site page www.wmc-cobalt.com. In nickel, Internet sales on www.nickel-com at premiums to LME cash account for between five to 10 percent of WMC's business in this metal.
Johnston said WMC had adopted a different approach for copper. Here, the customer tracks the progress of the transaction through the warehouse to delivery through the Web. It was too early to say how this was developing, but initial results are encouraging, he added.
Inevitably, Internet-based metals business will grow across the spectrum, with other companies such as Spectron and Emetra becoming influential.
"Personally, I think that within five years 50 percent of all metals will be sold B2B or on the Internet," Johnston added.
