Why it pays to be responsive in scrap plastic trading

Scrap plastic trading is a time-sensitive business – every deal can get done (or fall apart) based on both counterparties’ deadlines and timelines. Shipping costs and freight costs can fluctuate day-by-day or even hour-by-hour. The price of materials changes constantly due to shifts in global markets and the ebb and flow of demand. This means that in scrap plastic trading, time is of the essence! If you’re not moving quickly and being responsive to your customers to help get deals done, your competitors are going to beat you to it!

One of the biggest things we’ve noticed from our time in the scrap plastic trading business is the importance of being responsive and working fast for your customers. If you get an inquiry from a prospective buyer of scrap plastic, but then you don’t respond quickly, your potential deal can go to a competitor. If you develop a reputation for failing to return calls or being slow to put price quotes together or acting sluggish in delivering on your promises, your business is going to suffer for it.

The scrap plastic trading business has traditionally not been as much of a “high pressure” business as a lot of other places like Wall Street – our industry is not typically seen as a “boiler room” atmosphere where people are working 90-hour weeks and constantly doing deals. A lot of scrap plastic trading firms still do things “the old fashioned way” by keeping records on paper, some traders work with only a few customers, and some traders have gotten a bit too comfortable (some might say “complacent”) with how they run their business.

This seeming lack of time pressure is a huge opportunity in our industry – because here at BlackBridge Investments, we are hungry to grow and we are eager to do business with people who are willing to speed up the pace a little. Let’s move faster and do some deals!

This sounds kind of harsh, but it’s true – a major complaint that we hear about some other people in our industry is “laziness.” There are too many scrap plastic traders who just aren’t as “on the ball” as they could be, and they are missing out on opportunities because of it.

For example, there are many occasions where we can’t get people on the phone or it takes days to get a purchase order done. There seems to be a lack of urgency from many people in the scrap plastic industry, or a lack of motivation, or a lack of focus on getting details right and getting deals done when the opportunities are ripe for the plucking. We don’t understand this mentality. This isn’t how we want to do business.

Here at BlackBridge Investments, we pride ourselves on being responsive to our buyers. We have set up our website to take online inquiries easily and efficiently, and we use proprietary high-tech systems to make sure we can get answers and updates to our clients/vendors as quickly as possible. We operate as “paperlessly” as possible – we use digital technology to manage the details, archive purchase orders and freight tickets, and reduce the administrative hassle so that we can spend more time building relationships with buyers and getting deals done.

Are you ready to move faster in growing your business and getting scrap plastic trading deals done? Let’s talk. We are eager to work with trading partners who are ready for a new standard of speed, efficiency and responsiveness so we can all be more profitable.

How do you stay up-to-speed in responding to your customers? What are the worst “horror stories” you’ve heard about other scrap plastic traders – phone calls unreturned, deals falling through, etc.? Without naming names, feel free to leave a Comment and let us know what you think about this issue in our industry.