Shashi Mehta (name changed) is a small-scale steel trader in Mumbai. He buys steel not from big steel companies but from a portal. Explains Mehta: "Such steel portals are not only a one-stop shop for all the different kinds of steel we require, but we also get better deals."

Mehta is among the traders, mini mills, small-scale processors and component manufacturers who've discovered that it's far more convenient to buy steel over the Internet.

One upshot: online steel retailers are reporting a boom. Steel portals like Metaljunction.com, a 50:50 joint venture promoted by Tata Steel and the Steel Authority of India, the industrialist Anurag Saraf-promoted Steel RX, the Essar group-promoted clickforsteel.com and the Jindal group-promoted steelemart.com expect to report a combined turnover of Rs 2,700 crore (Rs 27 billion) this financial year.

The big daddy of the business, Metaljunction.com, has sold 1 million tonnes of steel ever since it was set up 23 months ago, the second portal in the world to have crossed this milestone (the first was the now defunct US-based metalsite.com, in 2001). Metaljunction expects to hawk 700,000 tonnes of steel this year, worth around Rs 1,800 crore (Rs 18 billion), up from Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) in 2002-2003.

Others are doing quite nicely too. The Essar group's clickforsteel.com, will sell 180,000 tonnes of steel this year, worth Rs 400 crore (over 250,000 tonnes of steel in the last three years). Some 15 per cent of Essar Steel's steel is hawked through the portal.

SteelRX will have sold 300,000 tonnes of steel this year and expects to report a turnover of Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion). It has set itself a target of around Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) in sales, inclusive of sales of non-ferrous metals, for next year.

Steelemart.com, promoted by the Jindal group, sold about 120,000 tonnes of steel this year and expects to report a turnover of Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) this year.

One sign of just how big the steel portal is is evident in the fact that Metaljunction.com is spreading its wings to Nepal and Bangladesh, according to managing director Viresh Oberoi.

So why are sales through portals soaring? Explains Y P S Suri, COO, SteelRX: "There is increased demand for retail sales owing to the shortage of steel available directly from the main producers in the last few months." The demand for steel is up, but, as Mehta says, it's more convenient to many people to buy an array of steel at one point.

The current crop of steel portals are the lucky ones. In the go-go dotcom boom years, around 15 steel portals sprouted. Most fell by the wayside. That happened elsewhere in the world too. About two or three years ago, 100 steel portals were in business worldwide, some 15 exist now.