Overview

Innovative or revolutionary: The web site was the first and remains the only online timber pricing system based on actual transactions between buyers and sellers. Using sophisticated statistical modeling techniques, Forest2Market has identified the key tract and sale characteristics that drive timber price. Segmentation of tract and sale attributes enables subscribers to find timber prices paid on tracts with similar characteristics, in the same geography. The application features are scaled to meet the unique data requirements of buyers, sellers and influencers both large and small and the subscription fees are priced accordingly.

Reference Site

http://www.forest2market.com

Reference Image

Customer Background

Forest2Market is the leading supplier of applications and value added services to the timber industry. CrossView developed the Timber Pricing Database for Forest2Market and currently hosts and maintains the application today. Forest2Market has no IS support staff. There has been a true partnership between the two companies. Forest2Market originally developed a 17 page PowerPoint presentation and CrossView turned it into a full-fledged custom e-commerce application delivered in a period of 15 weeks. The application is a web-based application developed on Java technology and WebSphere Commerce. It provides real-time graphing capabilities and complex analytics with drill-down capabilities at macro and micro economic levels. CrossView has been providing ongoing hosting and support (maintenance) for the application.

Benefits of Solution

In the timber pricing service space, we have one competitor. Timber Mart South, a not for profit organization that has been in existence for about twenty-five years. The chart below illustrates some of the key differences between Forest2Market® and our ompetitor.

Reduction to only 15 minutes for comprehensive market analysts.

- Timberland owner customers' are better able to judge the market value of their timber enabling them to time the sale advantageously as well as assess the competitiveness of the bids they receive for the sale of their harvested timber. Depending on tract size and market conditions, accepting an offer of $0.25 per ton below fair market price could translate to a loss of thousands of dollars for the ill-informed timberland owner.

- Timber buying customers can evaluate market conditions improve their bid efficiency and competitiveness. A timber buying company could pay too much for a timber tract or conversely lose the opportunity to buy a premium tract by bidding too low.

Prior to Forest2Market®, detailed timber sale data based on actual timber sales was not available.