Ordering large quantities of wood in the online world can be pretty tricky. After all, how do you know which sellers you can trust? How do you find the right product as quickly as possible? And who can pull your leg when something goes wrong in logistics? Time for an independent platform that champions successful transactions between supply and demand in the timber industry.
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The timber trade is outdated, non-transparent and certainly not sustainable. Working with many middlemen results in high prices, poor transport and inefficient sales processes.
What is the solution? A digital platform where users can buy and sell the best wood at the best price themselves. Without intermediaries.
VonWood was brought into the world with the idea of combating unnecessary (and often expensive) brokering of professional timber and sawmills.
In a nutshell, VonWood is like a marketplace where contractors place a particular order or demand. Sawmills make an offer when they can deliver. The contractors make their choice from all the offers and so VonWood creates a purchase agreement.
Currently, VonWood is still the only digital platform where wood supply meets wood demand.
What are the advantages of such a platform?
No brokering required
You decide what price you want to pay/receive
Well-arranged transport
A strong idea requires a strong team to contribute in its realisation. With the user research completed by VonWood, our design team started working on an appropriate design for the entire platform.
The entire platform? By that we mean: the vonwood.com website, as you open it. But also the environment where buyer and seller log in to place orders, respond to orders with a price and all actions after there is a deal.
How do we make complex and vast subject matter as amenable and clear as possible? This challenge was a perfect one for our experienced designers.
Think about these questions too:
How to place an order as easily as possible?
By entering as little as possible, how can one easily get to his desired wood? (A clear filter system in the search function)
Realising an optimal user interface for your website requires careful preliminary work. That is why we first develop a Functionality & Navigation wireframe. This is a schematic representation showing the most important functionalities, elements and the interaction between different pages. Without the further details, such as colours and graphical elements.
We are currently optimising the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) so that it meets users' core needs. From the first wireframe, new developments have been made step by step. Thus, the product is already on the market with the essential functionalities.
With the aim of quickly learning from the market and gathering user feedback. To then make thoughtful choices and develop further based on this.
Meanwhile, sawmills in Poland, Germany and Sweden are connected to gather valuable feedback. With all the orders placed now, we can learn and test a lot. With the goal: an even more user-friendly platform.
Building a full-fledged MVP with our experts also allows you to bring in investments faster and thus build on.
For example, VonWood has raised €2.7 million in investment money through investors such as Peak, Dutch Founders Fund, Keen and a number of strategic partners. That investment will allow VonWood to accelerate the company's growth, making the wood market accessible to all.