By Chris Porch, RecycleMatch CEO - The concept of “quality” is of the utmost importance on RecycleMatch and permeates our site, policies and procedures. Although it is a cornerstone of our business, how we’ve chosen to put this concept into practice has been one of the most misunderstood and questioned aspects of our business so far.  As background, let’s first review what we heard from our beta customers (large and medium size companies, recyclers, brokers, and haulers)

Companies are not going to list the materials that they are sending to landfills if their company name is attached to it.  Confidentiality is a non-negotiable requirement for many of these companies.

Spam and messages that are of a general nature (not specifically about the materials listed) are a major inefficiency and source of dissatisfaction for sellers.

Buyers need reliable, high quality materials that they are not able to find other places.  They want listings to be real and the materials available.  As good as the listings may appear, there are often questions they need answered before they can make a bid and there needs to be a way to get more detailed information while maintaining this confidentiality.

Both buyers and sellers told us they only want to pay for results.  Sellers don’t want to pay to list materials without the promise of a sale and most buyers were unwilling to incur cost unrelated to the transaction.

Quality, confidentiality, results…these requirements are all related and are interdependent.  Let me explain….

In order to get companies to list materials that they normally wouldn’t, they need to have confidence that they have complete confidentiality and they won’t be bombarded with undesired messages.  By delivering this experience, it enables our site to have unique materials listed that can’t be found anywhere else, which is what our buyers want.

Not only do our customers want confidentiality but they also want our site to be results driven.  This combination is required for everyone to achieve the optimal outcome. For us to provide a pay for performance (results) business proposition to our customers, we have to keep identities of the participants anonymous until a match is made.

How does this all get put into practice?

1. All listing, buyers, and sellers are confidential and anonymous.
2. Messages between buyers and sellers must adhere to that anonymity.  No personally identifiable information is permitted (e-mail, phone, company, etc).
3. Messages must be about the specific material and be relevant to a transaction.  No spam or general information about products or services is allowed.
4. Messages are monitored for compliance and are denied if they don’t comply with these policies.
5. Once a seller selects a winning buyer, an introduction e-mail is sent to both parties to enable them to arrange for transportation.  Only at this point do they know the identity of the other party.  We do enable the shipment of samples if the seller agrees.
6. The buyer makes payment to the RecycleMatch escrow account. 50% of which is paid to the seller upon shipping confirmation and the remaining 50% is paid when the buyer verifies delivery or 45 days later, ensuring protection for both parties.  Our commission fee is taken out of the payments to the seller.
7. Reputation scores are influenced by multiple factors including; only listing materials you have and are prepared to sell or give away, only bidding on materials you are prepared to purchase, professional messaging, prompt payment and arranging for transportation.

We believe these features, policies, and procedures best deliver on the requirements of our customers and enables us to provide a business proposition based on quality and results.  We also believe that this will provide a significant distinction between RecycleMatch and other B2B sites that have been in the news lately.

However, we know that there is still opportunity to make improvements, so we’d encourage you to continue to provide us your feedback and ideas for ways to enhance our site.