Latest E-Casualty

Its investment capital exhausted, FPIX, Dallas, Tx., has shut down its electronic marketplaces after two years due to insufficient usage and revenue.

Mills and other suppliers used the service to list their inventories electronically, so commodities buyers could check prices, submit requests and place orders.

FPIX's system was created with the intent of preserving traditional buyer-seller relationships. Transactions. for example, were conducted by transferring funds between buyers' and sellers' existing banks.

Unfortunately for FPIX, every week seemed to bring a new competitor, making it more difficult for any of them to acquire enough participants to create a viable e-marketplace.

The acronym FPIX stands for Forest Products Industry Exchange.

Excess Inventory Online

An online building materials marketplace that connects buyers and sellers of excess inventories has debuted at www.bargainbuilder.com.

Based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., BargainBuilder.com allows users to locate and purchase reportedly more than $2.5 million in products from over 50 companies, making commissions only on completed sales.

"The vast majority of products we list are first-quality, even factory warrantied goods," said ceo John Sanford. "For one reason or another, however, they can't be sold through regular channels."

The U.S. excess building material industry is said to be over $1 billion.

Millwork Auction Site Debuts

The millwork industry now has its own B28 Internet marketplace with the arrival of MillworkSource.com.

The site features an online auction and classified ads for buying and selling surplus inventory and idle assets. Sellers list items for free, with the exchange paid on completed transactions. Full escrow services also are available through E-Escrow.com lnspiration for the service came from seeing the trouble millwork companies had locating an efficient channel to dispose of surplus inventory and equipment, according to Todd Braid, co-founder with his father, 30year industry veteran Fred Braid.

The Braids also operate Full House Co., a Melbourne, Fl., manufacturer of prehung door machinery.

Hardware.com Pulls The Plug

Soon after shifting its focus from d-i-yers to professionals, e-tailer Hardware.com, Seattle, Wa., has shut down its online superstore.

Hardware.com began selling in October 1998 as Superbuild.com, but a year later acquired the "more prominent, easier-to-remember" domain name from Mitch James, James Ace Hardware, Poulsbo, Wa. Although he received several large cash offers over the years, James sold the name to Superbuild for stock-and likely will walk away with only a minimal settlement from a deal with Onvia. His store now uses the URL www.acehardware.net.

Small business e-marketplace Onvia.com will pay under $5 million for Hardware.com's computer equipment and other assets. Onvia also will retain Hardware.com's programmers and developers, as well as ceo Mike Pickett, now Onvia's president and chief operating officer.

E-Tailer Dealing In Surplus

Pro-oriented Buildscape, Inc., Jacksonville. Fl.. has teamed with Liquidation.com to develop Buildscape Surplus, an online marketplace for buying and selling excess inventory and surplus assets in the building products industry.

Buildscape has licensed the Liquidation.com Business Service Platform to realize greater speed-to-market, economies of scale and a range of back-end services to complete surplus transactions.

E-Strategy Conference

The Institute for International Research is holding its second Home Improvement Online conference Oct. 23-24 at the Le Meridien Hotel, New Orleans, La.

Topics include how companies can incorporate the Internet into their existine business plan, understanding what it takes to build customer confidence and methods to establish a successful online presence.

The event will feature speakers from Black & Decker, Armstrong, Moen and other firms.

Do lt Best Teams Wth Talpx

Do it Best Corp. has joined Talpx Inc.'s e-commerce exchange in a pilot program to purchase lumber for their reloads, a union that gives exchange suppliers access to Do it Best's distribution network.

Based in Chicago, Talpx Inc. is an online business-to-business lumber and panel facilitator that includes 123 mills and 672 buying member locations, representing $6 billion in retail sales.

Exchange Arranges Shipping

Buyers and sellers at B2B lumber exchange YardConnect.com, Seattle, Wa., can now schedule materials shipments with their online transactions.

YardConnect.com is partnering with eflatbed.com, an online logistics source for the flatbed shipping industry, to provide rate quoting and logistics management services so that buyers can base their purchasing decisions on the delivered cost of products on the exchange, calculated automatically to their location.

Orders will be moved by eflatbed.com's network of more than I,600 qualified carriers.

Lowe's Bans Environmentally Sensitive Wood

Lowe's Cos. plans to stop selling ging in national forests, and illegal wood products from "endangered" logging in foreign countries. forests at its 600 stores. Within the last vear. several other

"It seems logical to say a bolt of lightning stuck the mound, igniting the bark deep down in the pile," said ceo Frank B. "Bump" Faircloth. "When our yard workers noticed the mound was smoldering more than usual, we took action."

Thanks to local firefighters and the Division of Forestry, the mound was quickly divided to help extinguish the blaze.

Bark Fire Contained In Yard

Mother Nature is being credited for causing a one acre mound of pine bark to catch fire at Suwannee Lumber Co., Cross City, Fl.

"In developing our policy, Lowe's home improvement chains including pursued what some in the industry industry leader and Lowe's top commay consider an unconventional petitor Home Depot have agreed to approach," notes senior v.p. of mer- similar bans on wood from environchandising Mark Kauffman. "We mentally sensitive areas. worked closely with the environmental and scientific communities as well as our suppliers and facilitated a number of first-ever meetings between these groups. The end result was a more balanced policy and what we hope will be a major turning point for environmental discussions in the u.s."

Lowe's issued an immediate ban on products from the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia, Canada, and will next focus on the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast. The chain already has discontinued ramin dowels from Indonesia in favor of domestic poplar.

The company also formed a Healthy Forests Advisory Board to help implement its new policy and advise on general forestry issues. Consisting of enviro groups. scientists, suppliers, certifiers and buyers, the board will first address such issues as the conversion of Southern forests to pine plantations, commercial log-

UFPI Secures Cypress Supply

Universal Forest Products will begin offering a range of cypress products for the d-i-y market, after inking an exclusive long-term purchasing agreement with Sunshine State Cypress, Inc. for its entire production capacity.

Sunshine State Cypress' new Hosford, Fl., sawmill will provide approximately 10 million bd. ft. annually of cypress lumber that will be remanufactured at Universal's Moultrie, Ga., facility.

"We are very excited about the new product potential made possible by this agreement," said Mike Glenn, UFPI president and chief operating officer. Value-added possibilities include decking, fencing, lawn and garden products, mouldings, paneling and flooring.

Sunshine State has an exclusive 2}-year agreement with St. Joe Timberlands to purchase all of the cypress fiber from 300,000 acres of northwest Florida timberlands.

"The best solution is to let the fire bum itself out," Faircloth said, adding that sprinklers were used to douse the remaining embers.