Project: Bulk Trader – Starbase

Project: Bulk Trader – Starbase

We recently interviewed Bulk Trader’s Founder, Sikander, and are delighted to share his thoughts on how B2B ecommerce can be made more efficient and secure with this new platform that plans to revolutionise local economies.

Starbase: What is Bulktrader and what does it do?

Sikander: Bulk Trader is a Local B2B Ecommerce Marketplace Platform. It is a place where you can find local products for bulk purchases in your town, city or country. It gives retailers a wider range of choice for products produced locally in a country. All products that are sold, returned and reviewed will be integrated in the blockchain.

You can refer to our whitepaper here.

Starbase: Tell me about yourself and your team.

Sikander: I am the CEO of Bulk Trader. Prior to this project, I worked as a digital marketing entrepreneur and after that as a Senior SEO Consultant for Media and Finance companies. I am driven and inspired to see Bulk Trader grow from strength to strength. My vision for its future is a global platform promoting local produce and boosting local markets.

My team has been selected through careful consideration to build a powerful team that can help our platform to succeed. We have a fine selection of IT specialists and local manufacturing partners who are on board as advisers. Our aim is to expand our team and optimize for the best results possible.

Starbase: What inspired this project?

Sikander: Working an SEO specialist in 2017/2018, I have always been looking to save money buying items in bulk, to save money and time. Locally there was no place to buy online items at bulk price. One would need to know the supplier and spend some time getting to know the supplier before any transaction could take place. From there the wheels started to turn, and the idea for Bulk Trader was born.

Starbase: What sets Bulktrader apart from its competition?

Sikander: Our competitors are companies like Alibaba, Amazon and drop-shipping websites including localised ecommerce websites like Ebay. These companies possess only a tiny fraction of listed suppliers in regions like South Africa and are therefore limited in their potential geographic reach.

We, on the other hand, are based in and have expertise in such emerging economies, where local retailers sell products one by one to consumer markets and procure goods locally, rather than from overseas.

This necessitates a higher profit margin, usually attained by cutting procurement costs.

Cheap and efficient B2B trade is essential in cutting procurement costs.

Therein lies the sweet spot we are looking to fill, a one-stop local shop to sell to retailers products in bulk, saving time and money.

This type of marketplace is not easy to build and therefore does not exist in South Africa, as well as many countries of the world. Bulk Trader is the first such platform in the region. For example, it is hard to find a supplier for buying nappies in bulk locally as information gets lost on the internet and it is hard to decide which supplier is good due to a lack of buying risk indicators (e.g. indication of previous volumes sold by suppliers).

Our platform overcomes the problems of limited choices and limited information available for retailers.

Starbase: What are the utilities of the BULK tokens?

Sikander: BULK tokens can be used to pay for goods on the platform and merchant advertising on the platform.

For loyal holders of BULK tokens, they can vote on platform changes and updates, unlock rewards and savings on listed goods.

BULK tokens can also be staked for additional tokens. A small percentage of tokens will be minted for every transaction made and will be shared with the various token holders in our staking networks.

Starbase: Are there any plans to list your token on external exchanges?

Sikander: Yes, we plan to list on Hitbtc, IDEX, Binance and other exchanges. We understand the importance of exchange listings and will be looking to list once our ICO has completed.

In the highly unlikely and exceptional event that our ICO fails to raise sufficient funds for MVP development, we will be looking at launching a IEO. This is a promise of assurance on our part to investors that we are committed in the long-term to the realisation of our platform and all its features.

Starbase: What can we expect from Bulktrader in the coming weeks?

Sikander: In the short term, we are looking at more team and advisor acquisitions, partner/supplier acquisitions, marketing of ICO and further MVP development. This will be in conjunction with our ICO launch.

Starbase launched a bounty programme in April to allow our projects to reward community in terms of project tokens in return for completing tasks like following you on social media, creating infographics and even whitepaper translation.

Would Bulktrader be interested in it?

Sikander: Yes please. We would be interested. Let us determine what we need most crucially and we will arrange for a bounty campaign.

Published at Thu, 25 Apr 2019 07:19:33 +0000