Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/1432391
2021: Tobacco Asia's 25th Anniversary 73 Will it catch on? Conceivably, the Covid-19 menace is going to vanish eventually, and the world can hope- fully return to a more or less normal pace. But will that mean that tobacco exchange portals will lose their usefulness? The two companies featured in our article don't think so. They are adamant that their concepts are bound to become increasingly important fix- tures in the post-Covid tobacco sector. "Since UTA's launch, technological and societal developments have turbo- charged interest in online platforms. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many ac- tivities online, and technology has evolved to handle them smoothly. Online business- to-business interactions have generated considerable efficiencies in many indus- tries, thereby increasing profits. Even the traditionally conservative tobacco industry has become comfortable with online trans- actions," UTA Products' Belinda Van Rens- burg told Tobacco Asia. "The world is rapidly moving towards electronic trading, and ev- eryone can see how it already commands the futures and forex markets, as well as crude oil and other bulk commodity trading. We believe that in a short space of time the physical movement [of tobacco] also will primarily be handled through electronic ex- changes such as ours." Jawè De Pietto, TobaccoBlender's media specialist, offered us the following in- sight: "It may become rather common to trade tobacco online and we certainly see a bright future for a portal like ours. Covid-19 has changed the way the business world thinks, and it has quickly adapted to this new situa- tion. Online meetings will become a normal way of conducting business, even in the quite traditional and conservative tobacco sector. Trading tobacco online will be a future real- ity, and therefore we, as true pioneers and architects of a new way of doing business, are going to be positioned very well." this point, supplier profiles (and lot of- fers) still need to be manually set up and posted by TobaccoBlender staff. "But we will soon implement a system that will allow vetted sellers to create their own profiles," he promised. "Then potentially anyone with verified credentials can up- load their product offers directly." The process will be pretty much the same for prospective buyers. Yet another step towards a full-fledged tobacco exchange platform with all the bells and whistles is Anzidei's plan to act as an escrow agent for facilitating payments. "We are currently in negotiations with various financial operators to sort out the details." Similar to UTA Products, TobaccoBlender insists that the entire transaction must be carried out exclusively on and through the platform, if only to "take advantage of all the services provided [by the portal]." Apart from the product quality guarantee and the successful completion of monetary transactions, this also includes "impartial and specialized arbitrator intervention in the event of disputes concerning the goods exchange," according to Anzidei. However, the method of shipment is solely a matter between seller and buyer. "But we do offer advice and consultancy on transport, transit and customs duties, export and import regulations and anything else that is important to know for either of the prospective transaction partners," Anzidei said.