Back in the day, buying chemicals meant making contacts among traders, manufacturers and suppliers. It was a very sociable act and generally involved a game of golf, perhaps a gin and tonic before lunch and then business. But who has time today, to spend five hours on the golf course and then two hours for lunch at the weekend, let alone on a week day?

So a new routine of business has developed, one that feels a lot faster, but isn’t necessarily any more effective or efficient. Nowadays, a chemicals trader has to spend the first hour or two of each morning wading through a mass of emails, before he or she can even begin to do some work. And when work does begin, what does it entail? Option 1: Picking up the phone or writing more emails asking for price quotes from the same old suppliers.

Option 2: Those who are more daring (or who have been in the business less time and so have fewer contacts) reach for the chemicals directory, in the hope of finding some new gem of a supplier.

The first option is conservative and reliable, and means that you will receive chemicals from trusted sources. It is a tried and tested route from people who you know (maybe even have met) and restricts the possibility of losing money to a dishonest businessman.

The second option requires some serious email writing or phone calling to persons unknown. The price might be better, and the conditions of sale more favourable, but you are left wondering if it is worth the risk. What is the value of a good night’s sleep against the fear of a deal going wrong with someone you haven’t met from the other side of the world, who you found out about from an advert in a magazine or (riskier still) an online banner ad? Better surely, to stick with who and what you know.

But even if you play it safe, there is the legwork required to process any order that has verbally or via email been agreed upon. This means obtaining authorisations and PO numbers, ordering items, notifying the accounts department and arranging for wire transfers.

There must be a better way.

There are many chemicals traders who yearn for a simpler way to do business, and many executives who yearn for a cheaper way. In today’s high-tech age where we even connect with our friends through a portal like facebook, it seems a simple, yet logical step to use the Internet.

We all know the power of the www. According to a recent Forbes magazine headline, “the B2B e-commerce market will be worth $6.7 Trillion by 2020″ with Alibaba (a business just 16 years old, making $27 billion of that business).

The rapid and exponential growth of a business like Alibaba is fascinating, as it shows the great advantages that can be had when using e-commerce, and must make every company ask whether it can survive today if it doesn’t use online trading.

More experienced readers may remember that it has been tried before. As Tony Ridnell, founder of TRInternational, Inc and member of the Board of Directors of America’s National Association of Chemical Distributors recalls, “At the millenium, there were in fact three dozen or so chemical exchanges that were destined to cause the end of the traditional model of chemical selling.”

So what did companies like ChemConnect, e-Chemical, and Elemica do wrong?

Maybe the market wasn’t ready. Maybe the remoteness of online trading was too scary back then. However, those three firms still exist (in one shape or another), although not the game-changers they were thought to be, they do still help chemicals traders do business, either by connecting clients or assisting with chemicals logistics.

Today, we are all much more confident at making personal purchases online, and businesses like Paypal and online banks have increased security measures greatly, such that buying from the Internet is now largely a stress and hassle free process.

Certainly one fear from online chemicals trading has been eliminated; the fear of doing business with dishonest traders. Whilst this can never be entirely eradicated, it is possible to establish an online service for users who have been verified as trustworthy and bona fide by financial ratings agencies. Such a service exists at Spotchemi.eu (who support this blog). They use agencies such as COFACE and Bisnode to vet companies before they can access the Spotchemi chemical trading portal.

Maybe a development like this means that we are on the cusp of changing the way chemicals are traded. But as it stands, it is one of the Internet’s strangest anomalies that the chemicals industry, whilst existing on cutting edge research and which employs highly technical staff and knowledgeable salesmen has not yet taken the leap towards online trading.

Every day we hear more and more about the power (both good and bad) of the web, and how the ‘Internet of Things’ will influence every part of our everyday lives. Maybe this is a blessing, maybe it is a curse.

As you read this blog, sent out across the electronic ether you may be bracing yourself for new ways to do business or maybe rushing with open arms towards the end of cold calling, email answering and overlong chemical conferences held in cities far from home. Of course you may just be hoping for the return of the golf course deal and the gin and tonic negotiations.

But the chemicals industry needs an online trading service. With chemicals’ markets and sources often continents apart it is such a natural step for online trading to take off. And when it does it would be for the benefit of all concerned.