Purchasing management strategy: how to purchase raw materials?
The procurement methods of raw materials include spot procurement, forward contract procurement and futures procurement. Commodity exchanges play a very important role in the procurement of raw materials. The world's major commodity exchanges are located in the United States, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, which trades precious metals, and Chicago Stock Exchange, which trades cereals, soybeans and corn. In addition, a major commodity exchange outside the United States is the London Metal Exchange, which mainly trades non-ferrous metals. Futures trading is forward trading, which refers to the delivery of purchased goods in the future, not for the purpose of accepting or delivering these goods at the agreed time, but to fulfill the contract by clearing the difference between the original transaction and the new transaction. Therefore, there is no actual commodity trading in the futures trading market, only contract trading about commodities. The futures market is used to hedge the price risk of a specific transaction, which will expire at some time in the future. Raw materials suitable for purchase in the futures market are as follows. (1) purchased raw materials account for a large part of the cost price of finished products. It is almost impossible to transfer the price increase brought by purchasing to the sales price. If so, it is worth considering using the futures market. ③ Raw materials used in finished products cannot be replaced by other products.