Reinforcing steel wholesale

A pure wholesaler buys and resells, without visibility into the production itself. Metalfac combines that wholesale function with its own wire-drawing, ribbing and cutting machines, so part of every delivery can come directly from our own production.

That matters for larger volumes: in-house production gives control over part of the lead time, while the network of producers and importers tops up the volume to what a project needs.

With larger quantities, terms such as lead time, delivery phasing and price per tonne play a bigger role than for a one-off small order. Metalfac discusses these elements per request, based on tonnage, diameters and the desired period.

For ongoing off-take over several months, call-off agreements can be made, so the full volume doesn't have to be delivered and stored all at once.

Bars, coils, mesh, ribbed wire and custom work can all be combined in one request. For a wholesale customer who resells to contractors, that's more efficient than placing separate orders with different suppliers per product line.

Mixed volumes too — for example a mix of bars and mesh in the same shipment — are coordinated from the same planning.

Larger volumes are often delivered in multiple shipments or, for export, in full container loads. Beveren is close to the Waasland port and the Antwerp terminals, which keeps pre-carriage for these volumes limited.

For export volumes, bundling and packing are matched to the unloading infrastructure at the destination port, so unloading on site runs smoothly.

State the desired tonnage, the split across diameters and grades, and the desired delivery period. Based on that we propose whether delivery will come entirely from our own production, or be supplemented via our network.

For recurring volumes we then look at whether a fixed call-off agreement is a better alternative than separate orders.