India’s largest aluminium producer, Vedanta Aluminium, has launched a new online platform for purchasing aluminium products, expected to further fuel the company’s growth. The online superstore – MetalBazaar app – offers over 750 product variants and comes with a variety of technology-oriented features such as live shipment tracking, AI-powered spot orders, financial reconciliation, and more. It also brings ease of doing business to customers, providing transparency and a seamless buying experience akin to B2C e-commerce on a B2B metal buying platform. Despite commodity price fluctuations, the technology ensures buyers receive the right price and value for their chosen products. The metalbazaar app can be easily accessed through the company’s website link and is also available for download on mobile devices. Customers can choose from a wide range of products, including ingots, billets, primary foundry alloy (PFA), wire rods, rolled products, flip coils, hot metals, and Restora (India’s first low-carbon aluminium).
Aluminium is a critical raw material for key sectors such as aerospace, automotive, building and construction, energy distribution, defence, and many more. Identified as a vital metal for the global energy transition, it is also crucial to emerging sectors such as renewable energy, electric vehicles, green infrastructure, and hi-tech manufacturing, earning it the moniker of the ‘metal of the future’.
Global-first features
The innovative e-commerce platform is poised to revolutionize the aluminium buying experience. It promises to simplify the entire procurement process, enabling buyers to focus on their business growth rather than wasting time on transactional follow-ups and tracking the vagaries of commodity prices and order fulfilment. Aluminium is the second-most consumed metal in the world today, second only to steel.
Several global-first features are integrated into the platform, including product availability, online price discovery, long-term contracts, on-the-spot orders, live shipment tracking, financial reconciliation, and critical documentation (such as test certificates, bank guarantees and letters of credit). This entire experience is supported by Vedanta Aluminium’s panel of in-house experts, who will be on hand to guide first-time users.
“MetalBazaar is a breakthrough initiative for our customers. So, we want to provide them with the broadest range of products and make the buying process as efficient as possible. It enables them to discover prices online and handle all aspects of the buying process, from negotiating the contract to placing the order to tracking delivery, and reconciling the financials at the end of the day, all in a very seamless way,” explains John Slaven, CEO of Vedanta Aluminium. “One of the hardest things is locking in price. Many factors lead to price fluctuations, and the company allows customers to take advantage of this AI capability to help them navigate through that.”
The good thing about this app is that customers want to be able to make their own selection regarding how they finance their products, as well as how they manage logistics. Service providers and vendors are available on MetalBazaar, so at the time of buying the product, customers can decide to work with a range of vendors for finance or logistics to ensure that they get the service that best meets their needs.
Talking about the importance of aluminium, Slaven says: “India consumes about three kilograms per person per year, China consumes 30 kilograms per person per year. As economies grow, the consumption rate increases. The world is moving to a low-carbon economy, and in order to do that, you need aluminium. Whether you are developing renewable infrastructure, solar panels, wind generation, or all of the transmission infrastructure that needs to connect these things like lightweight vehicles; whether it’s a motorcar, electric vehicle, or commercial vehicle, aluminium is replacing steel packaging. So, moving to recyclable packaging, to renewable buildings, all of those things require a lot of aluminium.”
“India is on a similar growth trajectory to what China experienced over the last 20 years. We want to grow with India’s growth,” concludes Slaven.
S M BOOTHEM
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