B2B Steel Price Tracker & Marketplace

The problem: no price transparency in secondary steel

India's secondary steel market — TMT bars, structural steel, rebar — operates largely offline. Buyers call multiple dealers to compare prices. Dealers have no standardised way to publish current rates. Price fluctuations happen daily based on raw material costs, but the information travels by word of mouth and WhatsApp groups.

For buyers purchasing steel in volume, this opacity costs real money. Without a central reference, they overpay on routine orders, miss price dips, and cannot negotiate effectively because they lack market-wide visibility. For dealers and manufacturers, there is no efficient way to reach new buyers beyond their existing network.

What made this complex

• Real-time price data aggregation across hundreds of manufacturers and dealers — each updating at different frequencies with different formats
• Landing cost calculator that factors in base price, transportation, taxes, and regional surcharges for any buyer-seller pair
• Price history tracking with trend visualisation — buyers need to see 30/60/90-day price movements to time purchases
• Secure direct communication between buyers and sellers without exposing contact details publicly
• Web and mobile platforms (Android and iOS) that work reliably in low-bandwidth conditions common in industrial areas
• Search architecture that handles steel-industry-specific categorisation: grade, diameter, brand, region, certification

What we built

A B2B marketplace platform that brings price transparency, direct buyer-seller communication, and market intelligence to the secondary steel industry.

Real-time price search

Buyers search by steel type, grade, diameter, and region. Results show current prices from multiple dealers with last-updated timestamps. The search handles industry-specific filtering that generic marketplace platforms cannot — steel grades (Fe-415, Fe-500, Fe-550D), diameters (8mm to 32mm), and regional availability.

Landing cost calculator

A buyer entering their delivery location gets an all-in cost estimate for any listed product — factoring base price, freight, GST, and handling charges. This eliminated hours of manual calculation that previously happened on phone calls.

Price history and tracking

Historical price data visualised as trends. Buyers can set price alerts for specific products and regions. When a tracked price crosses their threshold, they are notified immediately. This turned reactive purchasing into data-driven procurement.

Secure communication

Built-in messaging connects buyers and sellers directly within the platform. Contact details are not exposed until both parties opt in. This protects sellers from spam and gives buyers a structured way to request quotes.

The result

500+ manufacturers and dealers connected on a single platform within the first year. The marketplace created the first centralised price reference for the secondary steel market in India.

Buyers report reduced time spent on price discovery — what previously required 10-15 phone calls now takes a single search. Dealers gain exposure to buyers outside their traditional network. The price history feature is used daily by procurement teams to time bulk purchases.

The platform runs on web and native mobile apps (Android and iOS), with the mobile apps accounting for the majority of active usage — reflecting how the steel industry operates: from factory floors and dealer yards, not office desks.

Technical details

• React Native mobile apps for Android and iOS with offline-capable caching
• Node.js backend with real-time price update processing
• ElasticSearch for industry-specific product search and filtering
• WebSocket-based in-app messaging system
• Price alert engine with configurable notification rules
• Cloud-hosted on AWS with CDN for media assets