Robert Shieh of Ta Chen International Spoke on His Online Stainless Steel Products Purchase Platform

It took 20 years for stainless steel distributor Ta Chen International Inc. to complete deployment of it distribution routes. The company's chairman Robert Shieh said: "Steel tube and nuts are traditional objects. If you are to buy my products, prices are not negotiable, and you will have to buy them on Ta Chen's homepage. That is because our products are worth the prices and can create values for clients."

At a legal persons briefing held by Ta Chen International, Robert made a confident statement on the company's web purchase platform.

Ta Chen International started its plan to sell through the Internet before the year 2000.  According to the company, it has over 8,000 quotation inquiries per day which translates to over 8,000 incoming phone calls per day. Answering those calls alone would take a large number of workforce. That is why Robert decided to put its sales routes onto the Internet.

To put up its exclusive purchase platform, the company brought up an IT team of over 50 people for the construction of the platform. This exclusive team can tone up the platform's design according to actual sales condition.

According to the vice president of Ta Chen International, the sales module of the company includes B2B and B2C. B2C is quite simpler since quotations remain unchanged, but B2B is a different story because its quotations are subject to clients' order placements and client level. Therefore the IT team msut develop a customized system which average contractors will find difficult to achieve.

Additionally, Ta Chen International is planning to place vending machines of inudustrial products at the clients' end. In the future, clients will be able to swipe their cards to the machine and obtain the products they want, just like using a vending machine.