COLLEGE STATION Internet Web sites designed to buy and sell beef cattle could lead to a big change in the way livestock is marketed by producers, according to industry officials attending the recent Beef Cattle Short Course at Texas A&M University.
Beef producers heard representatives from cattle Internet Web sites say the future of marketing cattle may be as simple as the click of a mouse, and more cattle buyers will be turning to e-commerce because of convenience and transportation savings.
“We’re just at the tip of the iceberg as far as selling cattle through the Internet,” said Dr. Ernie Davis, a beef economist with the Texas Agricultural Extension Service. “Already in the past few months, the volume of cattle being sold is 20,000 head per month. And we’re continuing to see more and more being sold.”
Short course participants learned about cattle marketing via the Internet and how e-commerce may reshape the way not only how cattle are sold, but how typical everyday farm and ranch supplies are purchased some companies are forming alliances with major retailers to sell everything from office supplies to western wear.
Though the Internet is far from replacing the traditional auction barn, Davis said the Internet “acts like the old terminal markets,” where producers used to transport cattle to central locations.
“Basically, what we’re doing with the Internet is it acts like a big stockyard,” he said. “All it does is bring the description of the cattle into where the buyers are, and the buyers buy the cattle. All of this is done without having to move the cattle. That saves on transportation costs, and the overall stress of the animals when transporting them.”
Jim Hartman, a partner with Internet site CowZone.com, said the firm first launched the Web site in 1999. Its cattleroundup.com site is a free cattle listing service for ranchers across the country.
“Our site is geared to people that want to buy and sell their cattle online period,” Hartman said. “We don’t charge any commission. This is strictly a service to the producer. When you go to the bottom of a listing, you’ll see an e-mail listing and phone number. Once you’ve listed your cattle, and I’m a cattle person, I can read the description and visually imagine what that set of calves or whatever is listed there looks like. I can then pick up the phone and contact that seller that has listed those cattle.”
Transactions are between the buyer and the seller only, with the Web site serving as a large bulletin board of cattle listings.
With the growth of Internet cattle marketing, Davis said even traditional auction sale barns are coming on board. For now, though, Internet cattle marketing is primarily limited to large truckloads of 100 head. Only about 6 percent of the ranches in Texas are big enough to access this market, he added.
“Right now, most of the systems set up on the Internet only accept truckload lots,” Davis said. “They haven’t made it easy for producers to co-mingle cattle to where they can sell them in those large truckload lots.”
He noted 92 percent of the beef cattle farms and ranches in Texas have less than 100 head of cattle.
However, there are some producers who are marketing their cattle directly from the ranch through the Internet. Cattlesale.com, for example, includes a country cattle listing as part of their offering where buyers can place bids on everything from existing breeding stock to bulls.
Overall, the Internet is simply another way for producers to market their cattle and an additional attempt to put more money in their pockets, Davis said.
“You’re limiting the handling, the shipment of cattle and saving on transportation, not to mention saving on the stress and health of the animals,” he said. “It’s a win-win situation for most of the players there.”
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