While the trade media industry is filled with hundreds (if not thousands) of companies copying the original B2B online trade marketplace business model established by Global Sources in 1995, it is refreshing to see a unique player building marketshare in this space.
MFG.com is a B2B online trade marketplace focused on manufacturing. The site supports over 300 manufacturing processes from machining and molding to extrusions and metal stamping.
Driving efficiencies by disintermediating traditional trading houses, manufacturer’s representatives and brokers.
Revenues are generated from fees paid by suppliers (between US$5,000-US$10,000/year) for access to RFQs posted by buyers who need custom manufactured parts/products. Buyers use the site FREE.
While this subscription model is not unique the underlying services are.
For buyers, they no longer suffer from searching through pages and pages of product images and supplier profiles as MFG.com’s platform offers Intelligent Matching. This service automatically matches supplier’s with the parameters from the buyer’s RFQ.
If the Discovery Phase (buyers searching for suppliers) represents over 50% of the total Sourcing Cycle, which on average is between 3-4 months, then it is safe to say that MFG.com is saving buyers an unbelievable amount of time/money by shrinking this phase from months to minutes.
Buyers are also encouraged to provide Supplier Ratings which helps further qualify suppliers and their performance/production capabilities.
For intellectual property concerns when posting drawings with RFQs, MFG.com has developed electronic NDA’s that can be ’signed’ online before any supplier is given access to proprietary information. There is also a corresponding online ’shred’ function which deletes all potentially sensitive data.
For suppliers, they are paying a most affordable annual fee for access to over US$250 million worth of open RFQs (check MFG.com homepage for daily statistics).
Suppliers may also post Buyer Ratings in order to share their business experience with other potential clients.
MFG.com also offers suppliers Market Intelligence by providing buyer demand data for certain manufacturing processes as well as geographic origin of RFQs posted.
They also claim to have a patent pending application that predicts product prices based upon historic quotations submitted through the platform.
Other reasons I like MFG.com:
- Started in 2000 by a passionate and driven entreprenuer, Mitch Free, who was a machinist before bringing his deep knowledge of this industry to the web.
- Acquired largest competitor, SourcingParts.com, in 2006.
- $22.8 million in sales in 2007; projecting $35 million in 2008.
- Established and growing operations in Europe, China and India.
- Clients include Black & Decker, Harley Davidson and new age car manufacturer, Tesla Motors.
- Closed third round of funding in January 2008 with a US$26 million investment from Fidelity Ventures (investors in Alibaba Group) and the Samwer Brothers (investors in Facebook).
- Chosen by Business 2.0 as one of ‘15 companies that will change the world.’ Watch the video.
Buyers - If your business relies upon OEM/ODM parts/products, I suggest you sign up, post an RFQ and let us know the results.
Suppliers - If you support any of the manufacturing categories listed here, then MFG.com’s low cost entry prices make it an easy decision for you to gain access to the US$250 million in RFQs online today.
Trade Media Competitors - Take a close look at MFG.com as they are a bringing tangible improvements to online sourcing and we at TradeMediaBlog believe they have a very bright future ahead.
