

Over the last few years there has been a lot of talk about digitalization, also in chemical distribution.
“68% of chemicals worth $76 billion will be sold online within the next five years.” This was the message from leading market research institutes and consultants in 2000, at the start of the new millennium.
Virtually all areas of our lives would be inconceivable without products that come directly or indirectly in contact with chemical production: It affects the modern office environment, our private lives and thus our well-being and life fulfilment including health, leisure and personal protection.
The German startup Chembid, which operates a metasearch engine and online platform for chemicals, is extending their service with the launch of the new in-house marketing agency ChembidX.
The traditional business model of chemical distributors is currently fundamentally challenged on one side by digitally enabled activities from principals, logistics providers, customers, start-ups, larger chemical distributors or combinations of smaller players, who try their own online channels, and on the other side by general e-retailers like Alibaba or Amazon, who explore to enter also into chemical & material categories.