Duwon Stone (CEO Kang Du-won), a company specializing in basic materials for the construction industry, announced that it has developed an open-market platform dedicated to building materials.
Duwon Stone noted that the building-materials market has an underdeveloped online sales network and that, unlike ordinary consumer goods, its internet marketplace has yet to take off, creating considerable difficulties for the construction industry when purchasing materials. Through its own open-market platform, the company said it plans to begin nationwide sales of all specialized building materials—such as aggregate, stone, ready-mixed concrete, and temporary construction materials—that could not be found on existing open markets like Gmarket, Auction, and 11st.
The open-market platform developed by Duwon Stone (www.21store.co.kr) is built on the company's patented technology, a "Transport Cost Calculation System for Civil-Engineering Stone and Aggregate," giving it functional distinctiveness from existing open markets.
Based on a map API (Application Program Interface) function, this technology is a system that automatically calculates transport costs the moment a destination address is entered, for products such as stone and aggregate, cement, and civil-engineering materials that cannot be shipped via ordinary parcel logistics and must instead be delivered by dedicated shipment or vehicle transport. It offers outstanding convenience on the management side as well, including automatic quotations, payment, and tax invoice issuance.
In terms of sales strategy, the company explained that the main aim is not price competition among participating vendors but the provision of consumer convenience—eliminating the hassle of consumers having to search for sellers and compare purchase costs on their own, thereby enabling the company to secure highly loyal customers.
At its regular general shareholders' meeting in March 2020, the company plans to add mail-order brokerage to its business objectives in connection with the open-market platform business, and it also plans to change its corporate name to reflect the characteristics of the new business. Duwon Stone's building-materials open-market platform, "21 Store," will begin recruiting vendors and other participants and launch full-scale service in the first half of next year.
Duwon Stone CEO Kang Du-won said, "Through the building-materials open-market platform business, we are planning not only to enhance the company's image but also to pursue a special KOSDAQ listing based on our business model." He added, "We expect this business to bring about a logistics revolution in the building-materials market, and through it we will reinvent ourselves as a company specializing in online building-materials distribution and mineral resources development."