03 Apr

Solar Exchange – Helping Companies Reach New Heights

Since its launch, Solar Exchange has become the preeminent marketplace for buying and selling goods for solar professionals. Beyond its capacity as a platform for online auctions, Solar Exchange is a dynamic and secure environment designed to help companies extend market reach, source and procure materials and finished goods at lower costs, and remove traditional trade barriers that exist with today’s market approach to solar supply chain commerce. Solar Exchange is advantageous for both buyers and sellers.

Advantages for Buyers

With new policies, subsidies and continued growing awareness for solar, new markets are emerging and the renewable energy industry is at the threshold of a new energy revolution. There is a growing demand for solar products and each day new solar projects are being undertaken by countries across the globe. As a buyer, competing in today’s solar market requires smart purchasing of solar materials and finished goods. Utilizing the Solar Exchange online auction platform enables organizations to access millions of goods from all over the world directly from your desktop, saving time and money. Buyers have access to a wide array of solar content from across the globe. Solar Exchange also provides the added advantage of Escrow services to ensure your commerce transactions are safe and secure.

By providing solar products direct from manufacturers, buyers have the power to purchase at prices as if they had direct buying relationships with global manufacturers and can avoid the added margin cost burden typically associated with purchasing from middlemen. To further accelerate the buying process, Solar Exchange provides a number of convenient commerce options. Buyers can bid in Solar Exchange auctions to procure products at prices they are willing to pay. Alternatively, if a buyer would prefer not to wait until an auction closes, they can elect to purchase the product immediately through Solar Exchange’s ‘Buy Now’ option. Lastly, Solar Exchange also offers a powerful “Request-for-Quote” (RFQ) capability where the buyer can define the requirements of their purchase (brand, specifications, price, quantity, etc.) and submit the RFQ so sellers can bid on the RFQ based on the terms they are willing to sell at. This powerful solution accelerates sourcing of goods at terms that buyer and seller agree to ensuring buyers can purchase solar products that enables them to remain competitive in today’s solar market.

Advantages for Sellers

There are always high costs involved in traditional sales channels, however Solar Exchange opens up new avenues for both small and large businesses. Solar Exchange enables sellers to reach buyers on a worldwide basis, and to target new or specific market regions and significantly reduce channel costs. Your company brand and your products gain greater visibility on Solar Exchange. Showcasing products to a wider audience delivers more sales and because your selling costs are lower, ultimately more profit. Selling on Solar Exchange eliminates language barriers of reaching new markets as well by providing multilingual access to buyers worldwide.

Auctions are always competitive, fast and highly efficient. Online auctions, takes it a notch further. You have buyers from across the globe viewing your product and bidding. Solar Exchange gives you the option of putting in as much details about the product as possible including images, datasheets and other relevant marketing material which makes it more appealing to a potential buyer.

With Solar Exchange you control your pricing. You can establish a base price for your products, known as “Reserve” so your products always sell above the Reserve price.

Solar Exchange is the only global solution that offers sellers the exclusivity of trading on a platform solely committed to solar products. This provides more prominence for your products and eliminates channel conflict with your buyers. It also allows manufacturers selling products designed for use in specific markets based on regulatory or technical requirements to target their product sales to the right markets. You can find out ways to position and sell high-value items and set the prices for a product you want to buy according to demand and stock levels. Since auctions on Solar Exchange are open 24×7, 365 days a year, it does not matter whether your office is open or not at a certain hour, you can always have items for sale online. It also means you can overlap sales across time zones and reduce the need for your customers to travel to take part in buying. As Solar Exchange is accessible all the time, you can effectively sell even during holidays.

One concern that sellers in traditional markets face is the storage of inventory. There is always problem of storage of goods until sale and this require additional costs to procure storage facilities and increased chances of goods getting damaged. By trading through Solar Exchange, you need to ship the inventory only when there is a successful bid. The loss incurred due to damage and storage costs are greatly minimised.

Solar Exchange also enables sellers to conduct test pricing on products and analyse price receptivity. When launching new products or testing new markets, your products can be posted on Solar Exchange and based on response, you can quickly gain insight into proper pricing strategies.

Solar Exchange also provides the added advantage of Escrow services to ensure your commerce transactions are safe and secure.

Procurement Benefits for Manufacturers and Suppliers

Solar Exchange is a great place to source materials and components used in manufacturing finished solar goods. It allows manufactures to source critical supplies from suppliers at reduced procurement costs. Unlike traditional sourcing methods, Solar Exchange automatizes the process by allowing the manufacturer to identify new suppliers and engage with multiple suppliers simultaneously with pre-defined specifications to ultimately source materials and components at the lowest possible cost. Manufacturers can also reduce the time spent on procurement by eliminating the traditional supplier engagement process and expediting source to procure cycles.

Solar Exchange has reshaped strategies to increase operational efficiency. Strategic procurement is vital for both manufacturers and suppliers. Using the traditional procurement process, finding suppliers is time-consuming and limits the number of suppliers with whom a manufacturer engages. The result of this limitation imposes sole source dependencies which put supply chains at risk and often results in supply costs that may not be market competitive. Solar Exchange has changed this, manufacturers can now choose from a wide array of suppliers all over the world enabling them to source and procure from a variety of quality suppliers at the lowest possible cost.

Suppliers on the other hand have the benefit of being able to engage directly with manufacturers. This is especially beneficial to offshore and/or small suppliers who seek to expand their sales and engage with a broader market opportunity. Solar Exchange enables a more efficient integration of supply chains and provides negotiation transparency, allowing companies to make better deals. Faster sourcing, procurement and delivery of goods and services also help to promote shorter product-development cycles.