InformationWeek

March 27, 2000

Online Marketplaces:
Tradiant Takes Different Route
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Illustration by Dennis Harms Tradiant isn't the only company targeting the ocean shipping marketplace. The conference-room walls display posters of potential competitors such as Celarix.com, Eraterequest.com, and GoCargo.com. Alongside the posters are scribbled notes that provide critiques such as "Doesn't work" or "Lacks punch." Tradiant is betting it can beat its competition by offering more than just transaction capabilities between carriers and shippers. It intends to provide services such as newsletters, chat rooms, and digital certificates to legally validate bills of lading, Urban says.

"Invariably, all the competition is auction-based. It's focused only on trading, on a spot model," Urban says. "We want to be the one-stop shop for the transport world."

Such a marketplace can help shippers gain the lowest price by making the carriers compete against one another. But Tradiant also intends to build a system that includes information that can benefit both sides of a transaction, including which routes are available, at what time, with how much space, and for what price. That's different from its potential competitors, industry experts say.

"Some of the other auction houses only represent the shippers, and are putting together offers for the lowest bid," says J. Douglas Coates, a principal with Manalytics International, consultants in the areas of transportation and supply chain. "If you've got a cheap freight rate and you can't deliver on time, you missed the whole point."

To create its site, Tradiant is using Microsoft NT servers. Anil Nair, VP of engineering, says the company is developing a flexible site by using Java and Enterprise JavaBeans on BEA Systems Inc.'s WebLogic product, which incorporates all the rules and logic for the marketplace site.

When Tradiant started, the company investigated available products and concluded there wasn't an off-the-shelf system the company could be certain would adapt to meet changing demands, says Sasson, who serves as chairman. "It was very important for us to have a flexible, customizable system to meet demands as they arise. You don't know the next feature the customer is going to have," Sasson says. "For us to rely on an off-the-shelf product that we couldn't customize would have meant the kiss of death."

Nair and his team spent six months building the applications necessary for the site because there were none available at the time. "There were a couple of generic auction products, but there was no software solution I could buy off the shelf," Nair says. "With the technology pieces, we've done it and been there."

To design the site, however, Tradiant uses a singular low-tech approach. Down the hall and around the corner from its conference room stands what the Tradiant team refers to as the "Wall of Fame." Taped to the wall are sheets and sheets of paper illustrating pages from the Tradiant Web site and their links to one another. The design team will sometimes stop and look over the site and brainstorm a better design.

"People stop and look at it and say, 'We can change this or that,'" Nair says.

At the request of early users of the site, Tradiant is moving beyond simply offering a transaction marketplace. It has begun offering a private way for carriers and shippers to exchange information as well.

After a transaction is completed, VP of marketing Sundaram says, users want to be able to use the site to provide booking information, documentation, system control, and other information. "We expanded in response to the needs of the carriers to have more transaction functionality at the place that they need it," he says. "It's really an E-commerce backbone that fits into this transportation marketplace."

The site is in a constant state of development, as is pricing. The company hopes to charge a combination of transaction and subscription fees, but officials say that could change based on customer feedback.

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