Label Manufacturers Association of India’s (LMAI) online portal LMAI Advantage, announced in the month of March 2018, is now up and running. Speaking of the new portal, Kuldip Goel, LMAI president, said that it is designed to help LMAI members to list, buy and sell consumables and label-stock lying idle with them. Members wishing to sell their old machines can also list the details on the portal.
“The portal will allow LMAI members to sell online their unused raw materials to fellow members. Many label printers generate left out/unused raw material which eventually becomes obsolete over time as they come with shelf life. As per our research, material worth more than Rs. 10 crore expires unused at label converters end in India every month. So the portal will be useful for the entire label industry,” Goel informed. Label printers frequently face the problem of huge pileup of label-stock that they can’t use directly due to mismatch between side slit and the decale.
LMAI Advantage is populated with the product codes of all raw materials by major players like Avery Dennison, UPM, SMI and others. To register a raw material on the portal, the seller has to enter three important details – product code of the raw material lying idle with him/her, manufacturing date, and width and length of the material.
Speaking of the user friendliness of the portal, Goel said that a user can input as many as 20 products in a matter of just 5 to 10 minutes. The seller data which is stored in the database can be accessed and searched by other members simply by logging into their account in the portal. All listed data in the portal is required to be validated every month.
Goel informed that LMAI members don’t have to pay any fee or commission to enjoy the benefits offered by the portal. “We are just a platform to help the two parties (buyer and seller) meet online. In the end, it’s their prerogative how to go ahead with the deal.” To meet the expenses of running the portal, revenue is generated through online advertisement. He added, “While the cost to our association is nil, everybody benefits out of it.”
Goel sounded optimistic that if the portal can contribute to recycling of even 30 to 40% of the unused materials lying idle with converters, it would bring great financial relief to label converters which will make them more competitive. “It is not only a cost to the industry or the converter when you scrap such raw materials, but it also poses environmental threats. And if you see, around 70 to 80% of these raw material are imported. So a lot of foreign currency is involved as well,” he concluded.
— Mahan Hazarika
