Interview Pieter Post
'Transaction app puts you on an equal footing with trader'
Whether DCA's TransactionApp is a gap in the market? It is certainly popular. The initiative got off the ground in no time. Every day, more than two thousand (mainly) arable farmers now receive a notification via WhatsApp of the latest transactions in the field of potatoes, onions, but also fuel and contract work. Since this week, the possibility of purchasing propane together with the participants has also been investigated. It is therefore high time for a meeting with coordinator Pieter Post, who announces the latest transactions every morning, often before dawn.
The transaction app was launched a few months ago, and the two-thousandth participant has since been welcomed. What exactly do you offer?
"An accessible platform, on which agricultural entrepreneurs share purchase and sales transactions with each other via WhatsApp. Everyone is familiar with WhatsApp and on that basis the idea was born to communicate with the agricultural entrepreneur. You do not need to install a separate app for it. This means that you are accessible to everyone. An overview is sent at the start of every working day if there are sufficient transaction reports. The reports are segmented into categories, so that the user has a quick overview of the price movements of the various products. The transactions all relate to matters that take place on and around the agricultural company, ie both on the purchase and the sales side.There are now eighteen categories for the arable version and more than 1.250 transactions have been shared.A condition of the design was that it had to be completely anonymous. Regions are used to clarify certain price developments satisfactorily so far."
What advantages does it offer, in addition to being prepared as an entrepreneur?
"Having insight into the price development of products gives you a stronger negotiating position with the counterparty. After all, you are informed and are therefore on an equal footing with your trader. We notice from user reactions that insight into price movements actually offers advantages. that he went to his fuel supplier with the notifications on the TransactionApp after a delivery of diesel oil, it turned out that an error had been made, which corrected the invoiced price from € 175,30 to € 152,00 per 100 liters (excluding VAT). It was a considerable amount of the volume delivered. The question is whether the user in question would have found out without the TransactionApp."
"The TransactionApp is a new source of information that puts traders on edge. We know that traders are also among the users and there is nothing wrong with that. As a trader you have to know what is going on in the market. Especially merchants who operate solo, have only a limited view of the market. It is striking that we even receive questions about how the trade in a certain product is going when no reports of that product have been shared for a number of days. The TransactionApp is not only a source of price information, but also a source for the number of trade movements. A good example of this are the transactions in onions. Whether or not you want to buy can be read directly from the number of reports. But this is also reflected in potatoes. The users have been enthusiastic so far. Every working day on a silver platter getting the transactions handed over is a very luxury and that is appreciated. The reports have been numbered and number 89 is now a fact."
Pieter Post
How do you guarantee that the market picture remains pure through the transactions outlined, because there is a danger that only the tip of the iceberg is exposed.
"Users who report transactions are asked to substantiate their reports with a purchase agreement or an invoice. This is now the practice in 87% of the cases. In certain categories sending purchase agreements is not customary and in some regions it is not. substantiation will therefore not be achieved, but this does not have to detract from the picture of price developments in a certain category.The tip of the iceberg is used by critics of the TransactionApp as an argument that only the highest sales prices or lowest purchase prices are reported and that this would not create a realistic market picture. That is easy to say from the sidelines, but with a user number of 100 we do not have the illusion that every arable farmer has signed up by now. But that is only a matter of time. From the start on June 2.250 to date, an average of eighteen new users have registered per day tieApp that it is not a one-hit wonder and that ensures the enormous response. Handling the information with integrity is also highly valued. They will not receive any information from us about who contributed what. We have made that a condition and we monitor that every day. The fact that not only the highest selling prices are reported is evident from the number of reports on onions. The differences that are realized there within a region on the same day indicate that the reports are a true representation of the market."
Soon you will also start jointly purchasing gas. How does this work?
"We are thinking about working together as a TransactionApp group for the purchase of products. And that is pioneering. Yesterday (Monday 17 October) we did a first serious test with this to see whether joint purchasing of propane gas can offer users benefits. The party that wanted to roll out this experiment with us has created a separate URL with which users can register for an auction without any obligation. We cannot yet state how this will turn out. we are convinced, so we are curious about the response and result. Here too it is pioneering and looking at what works and what does not work."
Is the transaction app only limited to arable farmers?
"We started a TransactionApp for arable farming in June. We believed in our plan and therefore opted for a special approach for DCA. Not a sleek and slick website, but a learning by doingproject. This means that you can easily adjust things during the process. In the beginning, we didn't segment, messages didn't have numbering, and reported transactions weren't sorted by region yet. Responses from participants can also be adopted one-on-one if they fit in with our philosophy. Every day we learn and apply improvements. Because it is not automated, this means a lot of manual work that has to be done in between the other work. That makes it labor intensive. The advantage of this approach is that you will soon know what you want to automate and that is also worth a lot. For us, arable farming is a learning experience for other sectors such as dairy farming and intensive livestock farming. The first steps towards the latter sectors have now been taken and users in dairy farming and intensive livestock farming will be regularly provided with price information in the short term."
Wouter Job
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