We are super excited to announce that we have launched our CheMondis Incoterms Assistant. This feature helps every buyer in the chemical industry to find the fitting Incoterm when requesting an offer. Just by clicking through 3 simple questions.
During the past months we received a lot of feedback from our customers that finding a fitting Incoterm can be challenging.On our platform, but also in general. We started to research on our own and looked up many descriptions, illustrations, and definitions about Incoterms. However, we found most explanations to be complicated and overlapping. Nothing was easy enough to identify the fitting Incoterm at one glance or a few clicks.
Therefore, we developed a solution. The CheMondis Incoterms Assistant.
What are Incoterms?
Incoterms® (International Commercial Terms) are predefined commercial conditions used in international trade. They clearly define the tasks, costs, insurance, and risks on the buyer and supplier side. In total there are eleven different Incoterms which sometimes only differ in small details.
At CheMondis we have the Incoterms® 2020 in place. On our marketplace as well as on any other sourcing channel the supplier always needs to know about the requested Incoterm to be able to prepare an offer because the offered price largely depends on logistics, insurances, and custom responsibilities.
Details about each Incoterm are described at the bottom of the article.
How the CheMondis Incoterms Assistant works.
CheMondis customers can start the assistant directly from the request page. The assistant can also be started by non-CheMondis customers using this link:
Now just 3 clicks are required to find the correct Incoterm easily:
Do you want the goods delivered by the supplier or do you want to pick them up yourself?
Where do you want the goods to be delivered or where do you want to pick them up?
Select details about loading, insurances, customs, or risk responsibilities.
That’s it.
You will receive the suggested Incoterm including a description of the responsibilities for the buyer and the supplier. CheMondis customers can start the assistant directly from the request page.
Now It Is Up to You.
We are looking forward to your feedback on the CheMondis Incoterms Assistant. Let us know about what you think about it: Sebastian.Schnock@CheMondis.com
You want to find out more about each Incoterm? Find our descriptions.
EXW – Ex-Works or Ex-Warehouse
EXW delivery method is the oldest delivery method used in international trade. The seller has no responsibility other than packaging the goods at their own facility and keeping them ready.
As soon as the buyer picked up the goods the buyer is responsible for transportation, loading, and customs and has all risks in case of loss or damage.
FCA – Free Carrier
Approximately 40 percent of international commercial transactions are carried out with FCA. The seller transfers the goods to agreed place (e.g. warehouse, airport, shipping terminal) named by the buyer at a specified dat. As soon as the seller completes the customs procedures, and from all costs and risks related to the goods pass to the buyer.
FCA delivery, which can be used in all types of transport, the responsibility of the seller ends without loading the goods, especially in sea transport.
FAS – Free Alongside Ship
FAS rules describes that the goods are placed on the dock or barge in the direction of the ship at the designated port of loading. Doing that the seller’s delivery obligation has been fulfilled. From this moment all costs and risks of loss or damage pass to the buyer.
FOB – Free On Board
FOB rules describes that once the goods are on the ship’s board at the port of loading the seller’s delivery obligation are fulfilled. From now on, during the shipping itself, any costs and risks of loss or damage belong to the buyer.
CFR – Cost and Freight
CFR rules describes that the seller needs to arrange and pay the transport and freight costs until the goods arrive to the port of destination. However, risk of loss and damage is responsibility of the buyer since the goods transferred to ship and onboarded with other possible expenses which may occur after loading.
CIF – Cost, Insurance and Freight
With the CIF rules the seller has the same responsibilities as in CFR (ensure the delivery to the port of destination). However, in addition the seller must obtain a sea transport insurance for the goods and must pay the insurance premium.
Please note that within the old Incoterms® 2010 rules, CIF and CIP had a standard minimum guarantee and referred to a shipping insurance. Now with Incoterms® 2020, the insurance coverage in CIF have different insurance guarantees unless otherwise agreed.
CPT – Carriage Paid To
CPT rules describe that the seller pays for the freight to an agreed destination. After transferring the goods to carrier-transporter all additional charges and risks are in responsibility of the buyer.
CIP – Carriage And Insurance Paid To
CIP rules describe the same obligations as the CPT term (freight to agreed destination), but in addition, it is obliged for the seller to provide the buyer with cargo insurance against the risk of loss and damage during the transportation of the goods. The seller concludes the insurance contract and pays the insurance premium.
Please note that within the old Incoterms® 2010 rules, CIF and CIP had a standard minimum guarantee and referred to a shipping insurance. Now with Incoterms® 2020, the insurance coverage in CIP has increased to “all risks” unless otherwise agreed.
DAP – Delivered At Place
DAP rules describe the seller’s obligation to deliver the goods to an agreed place of destination. All risks of damages and loss as well as all costs belong to the seller.
DPU – Delivered At Place Unloaded (replaces Incoterm®2010 DAT) DPU rules describe the seller’s obligation to deliver the goods to the designated destination and to unload the goods including all risks due to damages until the unloading has happen.
In Incoterms® 2010 rules DAT (Delivered at Terminal) described the delivery to a terminal while in Incoterms® 2020 the term “terminal” has been removed as the delivery and unloading can happen at any place.
DDP – Delivered Duty Paid
The DDP rules describe the seller’s obligation to transport to goods to an agreed place and to complete custom clearance as well as unloading the goods. Seller is responsible until the goods are on the ground of agreed place.
Sounds complicated? Use our Incoterms Assistant for your next request:
After last year’s great success with over 160 attendees from more than 25 countries, we are pleased to present to you the second edition of our CheMondis Paints & Coatings Digital Summit on March 11th.
Register to the Event and Enjoy a Day Full of Learnings and Networking.
Our 2nd CheMondis Paints & Coatings Summit (re-)connects big and small industry players from the industry in Europe.
You can listen to inspiring talks from industry leaders about digital success stories and projects in the Paints & Coatings industry. Additionally, you can find out more about the latest trends regarding digital tools, culture and new work by talks from well-known tech companies.
Besides the presentations and interactive workshops all participants you have the chance to digitally meet up – with one or more registered participants, potential and existing business partners. This is your opportunity to expand your network and discuss business.
What Could your Successful Summit Day Look like?
After your registration on our event page (https://cpcsummit2021.converve.io) you are asked to set up your personal attendee profile. This will enable other attendees to find and digitally meet you.
Afterwards, you can create your personal schedule for the day. Look at the “Program” tab and select the sessions you would like to attend.
To schedule meetings with another attendee please find “Attendees”. You will see your meeting requests under “My Meetings” in the left-hand navigation bar or you can send out requests yourself. And your personal program for the day is done!
There are two sessions which we highly recommend all attendees to join: the Opening Keynote by Sebastian Brenner (Managing Director at CheMondis) and Cornelia Birnbrich (Commercial Director at CheMondis) at the very beginning of the day, and the round-table discussion at the end of the day. Within our morning session you will get all important information to make the day a success.
It’s All about Digitization!
This year’s summit will focus on everything related to Digitization in the Paints & Coatings industry. During the event three streams with exciting talks, Q&A sessions and workshops will run in parallel:
Get inspired about the potential of digital tools, culture & new work by speakers from companies like Microsoft, Google, Elemica, Salesforce and many more
Gain insights into digital success stories and projects of industry leaders like Evonik, Clariant and many others
Learn more about CheMondis’ best practices and how to use our marketplace for your own success
2. The ticket price is set at 70 euros for the full day per attendee. As a registered CheMondis user from the Paints & Coatings industry, you have a free ticket option valid until February 26th. Please reach out to get your voucher: [Button | mailto:caroline.sajonz@chemondis.com]
3. Your registration will be reviewed since the event is exclusive for the Paints & Coatings industry. You will receive a confirmation email as soon as your registration has been approved.
4. Then you will get access to your personal planning tool. You can complete your attendee profile and create your individual program for the day.
In 2021 we want to continue our journey of making buying chemicals for you as easy as possible. We learned from your feedback that our buyers are missing two extra filters to be able to narrow down their searches on CheMondis to their exact needs. Here they come:
As of now, buyers can filter according to the “Supplier Location” or for “Manufacturers”. Of course, they can be combined with each other and with our existing filters to make your search results even more precise.
Supplier Location Filter
With our location filter, you can choose which countries you would like to source from. Using the filter only suppliers from your selected countries will be displayed in the search results. This will help you to find local suppliers and to keep transportation costs low.
Please note: that we use the company’s headquarter address for this information. Products might eventually be located at different locations.
Manufacturer Filter
For some product demands you might prefer to purchase from a specific manufacturer directly. You can now filter the product search results by one or more preferred manufacturers to narrow down your search before sending a request. To find this filter please log in to your buyer account.
Please note: that manufacturers often only sell large quantities and your request might be forwarded to a distributor.
Now It Is Up To You.
We hope you will enjoy using those filters to find a fitting product. We look forward to seeing your quote requests and orders on CheMondis.
If you have questions about those filters, please get in touch with us. For general feedback around any feature and the usage of feedback please let us know about your problems and ideas. Just send a mail to sebastian.schnock@chemondis.com
We are happy to announce that we have just released a feature often requested by our sellers: the new supplier dashboard.
The dashboard makes your performance on 100% CheMondis transparent and is thus a great example of how digitalization and data availability can help to grow your business further.
The dashboard is divided into three different areas:
Traffic Analysis
Turnover
Transaction Overview
Let’s have a closer look…
Traffic Analysis
Number of Active Products
This is the number of uploaded and active Products from your company. Only active products are visible to potential buyers and thus available for requests.
Number of Page Views
This shows your top 5 products by page views within the last 30 days, as well as the number of page views of all products within the last 7 days.
Please note that this number might actually be even higher than displayed. This is for 2 reasons:
1)Technically, only page views of visitors that accepted the CheMondis cookies can be counted;
2) Views of your products on the search results page are not included.
Turnover overview
Total Turnover
This part shows the all-time total turnover of all transactions you have completed on CheMondis and a chart related to your transactions in the last 6 months.
Turnover by Product
This shows the turnover generated via CheMondis for your top 5 products on CheMondis (all-time).
Transaction overview
Open Requests
The numbers of open requests grouped by status. This can help you to know how many buyers are still waiting for a quote or an offer, but also when a request is declined and closed.
Request History
The request history provides an overview of all requests received on CheMondis by type of request: sample, quote or agreement.
How Does It Help you Doing Business on CheMondis?
The number of page views is very important for every supplier as it gives an indication of how interested buyers are in reviewing and requesting a certain product.
If the number of views is high or rising over time, this is good news. It indicates that the product is properly described and that there is high online demand for this product.
If the number of views is low or decreasing, it signals that the product might be ranking too low. There are two main reasons for this: 1) the product details and the product descriptions are not detailed enough; 2) your answer time to incoming quotes should be improved. Our algorithm sorts results by relevance for buyers. A high level of detail and a fast answering time are both indicators of relevance for a buyer. For registered suppliers, we do provide some tips on how to increase page views on our help center.
Stay Tuned for More.
What you can see now, is just the first version. We will continuously improve and extend the functionalities of the dashboard. Stay tuned.
Now It Is Up to you.
Did you already check your dashboard? How to do like our new feature? Do you have any feedback regarding the dashboard or any other feature? Leave us a comment below and let us know.
Thanks for taking the time to read the CheMondis blog.
You can use CheMondis for various steps in your buying process.
Early in the process, you may want to request a Sample to determine whether a product is a fit to your requirements.
Next, you can use best our quote request function for a one-time purchase of a specific product at a negotiable volume and price.
For building long-term relationships, you can use our Agreement feature, which allows you to negotiate long-term contracts for a negotiable period and price and then call-off according to your needs.
Any of the three types of requests can be either sent individually or for multiple products at once.
For Buyers: Let’s Take a Deep Dive into the Sample Request Process.
If you are interested in a sample of a specific product before ordering a large quantity, it takes you only four steps:
Use the search function and find the product details page of your desired product.
Click on “Sample” to request a sample from the supplier.
Define a shipping address as the only mandatory information to make sure that your shipment reaches you. If you want to speed up the process, you can also enter the quantity you need and what you are willing to pay for this sample.
By clicking on “Send Request” the supplier will directly receive your request and will be notified via email.
Of course, for the supplier, the review of your request will be easier the more information you share. Therefore, you can optionally add the following information to your sample requests such as expected annual demand, desired sample size, desired delivery date, or planned usage of the product.
To find the details of any sample request, to communicate with the supplier, and to update any requirement please open the request details via your Requests Overview. Here, you can also filter by samples.
For Suppliers: How to Respond to a Sample Request as a Supplier?
You will receive an email as soon as a potential buyer sends you a sample request. You can open the request directly from the email or you can find any sample request within “Requests”. Here you have the option to filter by Samples. Make sure you click “Search” after selecting the requests you want to filter.
If you want to accept the sample request, the only thing you need to do is to indicate your price. You can either enter the price for a specific quantity or select that the sample is for free. You are then ready to send your final offer to the buyer, who can decide to either accept or decline.
Of course, in case of questions, you can use the chat functionality in the same way like you are used to from our regular quote request function.
Now It Is Up to you.
Did you already send a sample request or received one? How to do like our new feature? Leave us a comment below and let us know.
If you are already a CheMondis user please find our CheMondis help center for additional information.
Thanks for taking the time to read the CheMondis blog.
We know that you as a supplier will only be happy with your quote requests if they really match your business and your delivery conditions. To show you immediately the matching quality of your quote requests, we have introduced the Match Score Rate on our marketplace. This way we will assist you to identify the most relevant quote requests you receive from buyers.
Where to Find the Match Score Rate?
You can find the Match Score Rate within the menu “Requests” on CheMondis. To get an idea how it looks, please have a look at the following graphic. The Match Score Rate is highlighted within the red box.
How Is the Score Calculated?
The score is calculated by four different measurements. This does not just help you to set up the match score rate but also helps buyers to find your products as this data is required for the CheMondis search filters. Let’s take a look on the four factors…
Quantity
You can define a range of quantity (in kilograms) you want to serve for all products in general or modified for each product in the product details.
The score increases if the desired quantity of the buyer is matching this range.
Shipping Countries
You can select in which countries you want to ship to, either for all products in general or modified for each product.
The score increases if the requested ship-to location matches your served countries.
Incoterm
You can select the Incoterms you can serve as a delivery option either for all products in general or modified for each product.
The score increases if the requested Incoterm matches your settings.
Packaging
You can select the fitting package types for all products in general or modified for each product.
The score increases if the requested packaging of the buyer matches your settings.
The score is calculated by a combination of those four factors. A higher score means that the quote request matches your requirements more than a weak score.
How you Can Benefit from the Match Score Rate.
To be able to benefit from this feature please set up your desired terms regarding the quantity, incoterms, package types, and shipping to countries. This can easily be done in your company settings for all your products at once. Later you can still change the terms for each product individually. Please note that the rate will only help you identifying the quality of your requests if the required information is available.
Now It Is up to you.
Find your company settings to set up the information for all products at once. Click on your company name and then scroll down to Packaging, Incoterms, and Quantities. Find the following button to set up the information for each product individually.
For us at CheMondis – as a software development company – data security and the security of our marketplace are essential. Therefore, it is self-explanatory for us to ensure that we fulfill our safety standards anytime. To do so, team engineering is from now on performing so called “fire-drills”.
What Is Behind a “Fire Drill”?
The literal meaning of a fire drill is an exercise to prepare for a fire or other emergencies in a building. People prepare by doing whatever they would in a situation of fire – evacuating a building, grabbing a fire extinguisher, etc. as if an emergency had occurred.
Within the context of software development, a fire drill has the goal to prepare for emergency situations like hardware fails, major bugs, hacker attacks etc. – basically for the case we face problems within our code, the heart of the marketplace, without knowing the reason.
*Fingers crossed* that such a “fire” will never occur.
The Scenario.
On the day of the fire drill our engineering team had a meeting in the morning and our Head of Engineering Max Kugland (the initiator of the fire drill) explained the exercises for the rest of the day.
To make sure we do not create any real problems during this exercise and our marketplace survives the fire drill safely, we created a separate completely isolated environment. In this environment they could let the chaos monkey loose.
Max and a taskforce designed a couple of scenarios in which the marketplace service gets severely disrupted.
networking problems in the cluster (slow network, dropped packages, domain name system resolution failure)
sub-system outage (failure of a sub-system, system shuts down, can’t be restarted, disk full…)
partial data loss (deleted database tables, database goes down, automatic failover)
We Follow the DevOps Approach.
That means we do not have a dedicated operations team. DevOps is just a set of practices which a team follows to not only produce and test code but also build, package and release the code and operate the underlying infrastructure. Basically, the whole cycle. This means every (backend) developer does not only write code, but also possesses in-depth knowledge about the infrastructure the code runs on and the interactions of the various systems involved.
Why Did We Focus on Infrastructure?
Parts of the exercise were to…
figure out if something is wrong
to pinpoint and analyze what is wrong and which systems are affected
to contain the failure and protect other systems
to develop and deploy countermeasures
to learn from the failure, increase system resiliency and fault tolerance
The Engineering Team Was on Fire.
The team successfully spent the day on solving these issues.
Based on the learnings of the fire drill, we improved and extended our system runbooks, so we not only practiced for the emergency, but also have an easy to follow step-by-step guide what to do in case something blows up.
Prevention Is Better Than Cure.
We extend the catalogue of failure on a regular basis and intend to perform a fire drill quarterly, so we are prepared when lightning strikes.
So, there are many more fire drills to come…
Interested in Becoming Part of the Engineering Team?
Apply now via the following button to become part of #teamchemondis.
When we set the theme for this blog, it was clear that there is one person in our company who is an expert in this field. Our Office & Community Manager Alina. Within this article, she will give you more insights into how we developed our start-up culture, what challenges we faced over the past 2 years, and what makes our culture unique.
Thank you, Alina, and enjoy reading, everyone!
What is Behind a “Start-up Culture” in General?
“Start-up culture” is a relatively new type of work culture that aims to break down the barriers of growth that more established companies might have. It is known for and aims at giving space to be creative, agile, and passion-driven.
Back in 2018, we started our journey with five employees and a rough idea on how we want to shape our company culture in the future. The good thing was that we had it in our own hands.
We were equipped with a modern office in the heart of Cologne and a constantly growing international team consisting of the best people from the tech, commercial & chemical industry.
Work Environment is Not Synonymous with Company Culture.
CheMondis is a young and dynamic start-up. Founded in 2018, we are working on our mission to create the global professional network for the chemical industry and while growing an international team.
We have a lot of features which make working at CheMondis very pleasant. However, providing free snacks, the most modern equipment, and an office dog is not sufficient to create a great company culture. Of course, it was defining our work environment, though, which is a strong contributor, yet not synonymous with a company’s culture.
What we needed was to align on shared values – values that appeal to each and everybody in the company and that build the pillars to our company culture and our future growth.
So, in January 2019 we started our first values workshops. We used the “9-Levels analysis”- tool to make our team’s value system visible and thereby useable. Often it was eye-opening for every individual to learn about their personal values and drivers. During a two-day offsite workshop at the beautiful Marienburg in Monheim, we evaluated our personal 9-levels surveys and brought them together to a team level. A lot of discussions, active listening to each other and intensive group work resulted in the definition of five company values. (Click here for more information)
– Responsibility – Personal Development – Multi-perspectivity – Collaboration – Vision-driven orientation
With a constantly growing team, our culture develops permanently. Every new joiner shapes our company. That is why we held a second 9-levels workshop a few months later to ensure that everybody aligns on our values and has the same understanding of what’s behind them. Doing so, we realized that something was missing. We had been looking at ourselves and our way of collaborating, but we had not given one particular person an explicit seat at the table yet. Our customer. We, therefore, implemented a sixth value: customer-centricity. This progress clearly shows that our company culture is developing in the way our team develops.
Taking Time for Each Other Means Caring for Each Other – Personally and Professionally.
In my position as a community manager, I am ensuring that we are living our start-up culture on a daily basis. I organize and host interesting meet-ups in our office to engage with the local tech and start-up community. Also, organizing team offsites and regular stand-ups to push the collaboration between our teams and to give room to strengthen our team spirit is part of my job.
Besides that, the so-called “Donut-Bot” within our communication tool Slack supports us to boost collaboration across all teams. Every second Monday our employees get paired up with each other to go on a “Donut-Date”. A Donut Date usually leads to sharing great food, great conversations, and learning about each others’ jobs.
What Makes us Realize That our Company Culture Makes us Successful?
Our team spirit and the vibe in the office make us come to the office every day with a bright smile. We give each other a hand whenever it’s needed and live an open and direct feedback culture. This way we ensure that we learn quickly from each other and get better and better every day. For our customer, and for each other.
Our Plan for The Future?
We will keep on working on our values and our company culture. It is what makes us unique and it is also what will lead to building a successful company and product for our customers. We have split the team into six working groups, one per value. Each of the teams constantly comes up with ideas and measures to make sure the values are embedded in our core DNA and are brought to life in our daily behavior. We have launched learning lunches, movie nights, chemical workshops, and much more.
Furthermore, we just launched a competency model that is based on our six values – it aims at the personal and professional development of every employee.
Thanks for taking the time to read the CheMondis Blog.
On June 16th, 2020 we hosted our 1st CheMondis Digital Paints & Coatings Summit. Our vision was to connect big and small industry players from the Paints & Coatings industry in Europe and to match them with digital players. This vision turned out into the idea of hosting a fully digital event.
During the summit, we hosted three different streams where participants could listen to short & crisp talks from industry leaders about:
1. Industry Innovations from Paints & Coatings 2. Digitization in the chemical industry 3. CheMondis Marketplace
You are now wondering which speakers we won for this event? Check the agenda slides below.
Next to attending talks about innovations in the industry, the most critical part of any fair is to get in touch with your potential and existing business partners. Therefore, we provided all participants with the opportunity of “matchmaking”.
Participants were able to make appointments with other registered participants, for them to meet privately in a separate video call session (technically facilitated by us) and talk about business. We ended the day with a round-table-session about “Marketplaces as a Mean of Digitalization for Paints & Coatings – 3 Examples”.
By the end of the day, we had 180 attendees and more than 40 1:1 appointments scheduled. This is more than we had anticipated, and we are very happy that so many of you joined.
Moreover, based on our post-summit-survey, every attendee was keen to attend such an event again in 2021. So stay tuned as we are already thinking of something for you!
From the feedback we received, we learned that it was the right format.
Based on the analysis of our survey, we noticed that most of the attendees rated the amount of new information they learned as excellent. This showed us that the content proposed by the speakers was the right one.
Data also revealed that many attendees liked the opportunity to choose between different talks at the same time. Even when one of the talks was not of interest, there was a chance to switch to another stream.
Furthermore, the networking opportunity was highly appreciated by many attendees, as the chance to find potential new suppliers, buyers, or products was high.
Of course, we also had our lessons learned and we will improve a few things in the future.
Unfortunately, as many of you requested right after each session, we did not receive the consent from all speakers to share the presentation afterwards. We hope that you do understand.
In case you are still interested in one of the presentations, please reach out to us and we will get in contact with the individual speakers to check whether we can share this presentation with you.
For future events, we will aim sharing at least one handout per presentation with you, if it is not possible to share the entire presentation.
We will also work on getting a balanced ratio of producers and raw material suppliers as we believe it is the key to the success of such an event.
Regarding the matchmaking functionality, we also received the feedback that more filters like “Interested in” and “Being a provider of” would improve the quality of your matches tremendously. Of course, this is something we will also take into consideration in the future.
To sum it up, for us as Chemondis, the entire event was a pleasure and lots of fun.
Still not convinced? Watch the video below to get a pick at the behind-the-scene.
What do you think?
If you would like to help us to improve this kind of event for the future, please send us your feedback at: cpc-summit@chemondis. We highly appreciate any kind of feedback, so please do not hesitate to share your thoughts with us.
Thanks for taking the time to read the CheMondis Blog.
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