| Esteel has had a chequered
start with an initial flood of of sites that lasted for a relatively
short period of time. Many of the early esteel domain names are now
for sale. Unlike consumer goods and basic commodities,
steel is still at least from the point of view of the "end user" a
bespoke product. Whilst many grades are common to a variety of
industries, the final dimensions required by steel users vary widely,
and this has lead to the rise of the service centres that have the
facilities to further process the standard sizes manufactured by the
steel producers and supply the end user with his required combination
of width and gauge.
Accordingly the transactions facilitated by the main Esteel sites
are between traders and the larger service centres. Whether or not
future developments will see Esteel sites of real benefit to the end
user remains to be seen. |
