For sellers
Reach buyers who are actually buying
Producers, traders and exporters spend most of their working time proving they are genuine to people who turn out not to be. Verification is done once here, and it travels with you into every consignment on the platform.
Five ways a seller loses money in this market
Most of these cost you before a single kilogram moves — which is exactly why they are worth closing at the start rather than the end.
Buyers who were never buying
A letter of intent arrives, forwarded four times, from a buyer nobody can reach directly. You spend six weeks and a documentation budget finding out there was no principal at the end of it.
Demand here is posted by companies that completed business verification before they could post anything — incorporation, ownership and control, beneficial owners, sanctions screening. You are responding to a buyer, not to a rumour of one.
Proving you are real, over and over
Every new counterparty starts from zero. The same company file, the same licences, the same explanation of your ownership structure, sent again to someone who will still treat you as unproven.
Verification is done once. Your status, country and time on the platform are visible to every verified buyer, and your representatives act for you through seats at your company, each after passing their own identity check. You stop re-establishing your existence at the start of each conversation.
Carrying every cost before you see anything
Documentation, export duty, assay, insurance, transport — the seller funds all of it up front, and routinely ships against nothing more than a promise. When the buyer disappears, the loss is entirely yours.
Settlement is arranged between you and the buyer with your own banks, by letter of credit or transfer as usual, and the instrument can be filed on the consignment like any other document. Nelum holds no funds and verifies no payment.
Being asked for paperwork you did not know they wanted
Requirements differ by buyer, by corridor and by jurisdiction. A document nobody mentioned turns out to be the one holding up clearance, and it surfaces at the airport rather than in the negotiation.
The documents a consignment needs are set out as slots, and a linked party asks for what is missing in writing, with a note saying why — so what is needed is a visible list rather than an assumption. Anything you have filed stays on the consignment, and nothing you upload can be lost in a mailbox.
Disputes about what was in the parcel
The assay decides the commercial outcome, and it is where trades break down — a buyer reporting a purity the seller does not recognise, with no independent record of what left.
Assay certificates, weigh-in footage and photographs are filed against the lot, by the party who holds them, before and after shipment. An independent laboratory can be engaged through a request for quotation; it becomes a party at the scope of its work, sees only the lots it tests, and files its report on the consignment.
What you post
A Soft Corporate Offer describing what you hold, in the terms this market uses.
- What you hold, and how much
The commodity and the quantity, with its unit, its basis — dry, wet or as is — and its tolerance.
- Purity or grade
Stated honestly, because it is the commercial question. Doré, for example, is unrefined by definition, and buyers price the assay, not the optimism.
- Origin and route
Where the material comes from and where you can deliver. Origin is a gap when unstated on a supply listing, and buyers read it that way.
- Price basis
A fixed figure, or a benchmark with a differential above or below it. The differential is a term of the deal; the cash figure is agreed between you on the SPA.
- Expiry
Supply that has been sold should not keep attracting offers. Set the date it leaves the board.
- Your existing SCO
Attach the signed PDF and the assistant reads the terms out of it to fill the form. The letter stays with your company unless you choose to share it with the companies that answer.
Or answer somebody else’s requirement
You do not have to wait to be found. Buyers publish what they need, and an offer against a live requirement reaches a desk that is already looking.
Offer against a published requirement
Buyers post what they want; you answer it — accept it, offer part of the quantity, counter with your own price and terms, or ask a question. You are competing on the deal, not on whether anyone believes you exist.
Withdraw while it is still open
Positions move. An intent you posted can be withdrawn while it is open, rather than hanging over you at a price you no longer want.
Your terms are yours
Nelum never offers, negotiates or agrees anything on your behalf. It records the basis you stated and shows it to the buyer exactly as you stated it.
Build something that compounds
In a market where every conversation restarts from suspicion, the most valuable thing a seller can own is evidence of having performed before — held somewhere it cannot be lost when a contact changes job.
- Performance becomes visible
Completed consignments, documents filed, confirmations given — the evidence that you did what you said accumulates on your company rather than in the memory of one buyer's trader.
- The network is an asset
Connections make you findable. A member's profile shows how far they are from you in the network — first, or second with the connections you share — and a second-degree link is a warm introduction rather than a cold one.
- Your people carry proof
Each representative has a public member page, served by Nelum, that anyone can open on a phone at a mine site or a meeting — showing who they are and whether their identity check passed.
- A correction is not an accusation
Uploaded the wrong file? Replace it. The new version is current, the old one stays on the record, and the sequence shows a correction rather than something suspicious.
Questions sellers ask
- Do I have to publish my supply to everyone?
No. You can post to the public board, or send it privately to named connections only. A private intent never appears publicly, and only the companies you chose can reach it.
- Can an agent post on my behalf?
Yes, through a seat at your company. You invite them, the seat carries one role that decides what they may do — a trader may post and answer intents — and you can revoke it at any time. What they post is in your company's name.
- What if I can only supply part of a requirement?
Answer it with the part of the quantity you can supply. Large requirements are routinely filled from more than one producer, and a buyer can invite each producer to its consignment as a party at its own lots.
- Who sees the documents I upload?
The parties to that consignment whose work touches the lot. Not other sellers, not other buyers, not companies you are not trading with. An engaged laboratory or carrier sees only the lots its own work touches.
- Do you take a commission on what I sell?
No. Nelum charges a company subscription and takes no percentage of any trade — we are not a broker and not a party to your transaction.
- What happens when the trade is finished?
Every party confirms it. The consignment completes only when the party running it and every active party have, and the record stays assembled afterwards for the retention periods anti-money-laundering law requires.
Post what you hold
Register, complete verification once, and put your supply in front of buyers who have been checked as thoroughly as you have.