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The Metal Suppliers Online Story
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An interview with Alan Gamble, CEO & Founder
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Interviewer: Tom Stundza, Editor, Purchasing Magazine
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Tom: Alan, how long have you been involved in the metals industry?
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Alan: I’ve spent 26 years in the business, starting with inside sales at
Industrial Service Center, selling stainless steel in all forms.
From there, I went to work for American Metals, as Eastern Seaboard
Sales Manager, selling stainless, superalloys, aluminum and titanium.
Next, I worked for Northstar Steel, selling carbon steel products and
finally stepped out to join United Metals in Massachusetts. My last
venture on the sell side was with Alliant Metals in New Hampshire,
which I sold to a business partner to start Metal Suppliers
Online.
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Tom: What got you interested in selling metal online?
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Alan: Well, when I sold Alliant, I had the time to sit back for a moment
and look at our industry. Back then, eCommerce didn’t even exist
as a concept, but the information revolution was beginning to
dawn. I felt strongly that information was going to be a hot
commodity and that the metals industry did not have a central
repository for the myriad of specifications, tradenames, property
data and supplier data. In the early days, we operated on the
basis of “if you build it, they will come”.
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Tom: How responsive was the metals industry to your ideas?
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Alan: In the first four years, I shudder to remember all the doors that were
slammed in my face. It really took some intestinal fortitude to keep on
moving forward, but we were true believers. Our whole team was convinced
of the value of what we were doing and felt that it was only a matter
of time before the “powers that be” realized it.
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Tom: When was Metal Suppliers Online first launched?
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Alan: We launched the site in February of 1997, as a free service to the metals industry.
All that we asked for was a basic demographic registration.
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Tom: What was your revenue stream back then?
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Alan: Initially, we aggregated user registration data to sell banner advertising
and Corporate Sponsorships. Believe it or not, we were a small, profitable
website within 3 months. We supplemented our revenue by building websites
for metals companies and doing general Internet consulting. Additionally,
we licensed the informational utilities that we created.
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Tom: A profitable web business? That’s seems incredible given today’s eBusiness culture.
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Alan: We really had no choice. Remember, this was well before the days of
free flowing venture capital. For us, it was sink or swim, create
profit or pack it in. This thinking, this corporate culture is with
us today, as we continue to improve the
functionality of our website. We’re not in a race to IPO,
we’re in a race to build a great
company.
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Tom: How difficult will it be for you to convert these users into buyers at your website?
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Alan: Metal Suppliers
Online has something of a cult
following. Because we had a three year advantage on the competition, we had the time
to build our brand, listen to our users and build the site that THEY
wanted. On a daily basis, we research the metrics of our website. We
examine individual and total user sessions. What we are working towards
is a consistent, quality experience within our site, leading towards
longer, more robust user sessions. Once our users get a look at the kinds
of value propositions we have built into the new site, they
begin to use us even more. This creates
value for buyers and sellers, and a
solid revenue stream for the company.
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Tom: How are you different from
other metal industry websites and how will you win?
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Alan: The vast majority
of other metal industry sites focus
almost exclusively on the carbon steel
flat-rolled market. But, carbon
steel flat-roll is only one aspect of
the metals market. On a pure tonnage basis, it represents roughly 84% of total global
mill output, however, it only represents about 35 – 40% of mill revenue.
The balance is made up of specialty carbon, alloy, tool and stainless steels,
as well as copper, brass, bronze, aluminum, titanium, refractory and
application specific superalloys. Anyone buying these products is not
being served by our competition. We offer
the full range of ferrous & non-ferrous
metals. Our users buy a wide variety of
metals products and we will help to facilitate those buys
by offering up the best values available. We give our users tremendous
power. At metalsuppliersonline they can search for and transact with over 2500 metal suppliers.
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Tom: What is your definition
of eCommerce? |
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Alan: Ask ten people to define eCommerce and you’ll get ten
different answers. We have always felt that eCommerce
was all about introducing buyer and seller to the benefit
of both. Frankly, we have been facilitating eCommerce for
years now. As a matter of fact, the very first press
coverage we got, in Purchasing Magazine (May 1997) dealt
with a titanium buyer that got himself out of a jam by using
our service. Later that year, we issued a press release that
announced the very first one million dollar order on the
Internet: the direct result of information gained at the Metal
Suppliers Online website.
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Tom: What does the future hold for Metal Suppliers Online? |
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Alan: Our current plans
are for North America, but we will be
making our services available to global
markets in the very near future. We will
work closely with the metals industry to
provide much tighter integration. Our
long term goals are rather straight
forward: We will be the leading player
in the online metals market. |
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Tom: Alan, thanks for your time. I wish you the best and hope to together again soon. |
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Alan: My pleasure. I look forward to keeping you up to date with our progress.
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