PaperX.com is re-styling itself as an e-commerce software and solutions provider, moving from being purely a transaction fee-based intermediary marketplace.


The move follows PaperX's recent launch of 1Face (PrintWeek, 1 September), its totally outsourced package of services for suppliers, created, hosted and maintained by PaperX.


Coupled with this, it has released its PaperX Commerce Platform 2.1, acting as the primary tool to enable buyers and sellers to source and specify paper, as well as being able to negotiate and transact through the PaperX website.


Co-founder and chief operating officer Bjarne Lie said: "We are one of the first to move away from the transaction fee model of the e-commerce platform.


"As to whether we will be the only one to move away like this remains to be seen. Others have copied us in the past and they may well copy us again.


"It is probably fair comment to say that perhaps the transaction fee process was not tested as well as it could have been before we came to the market."


Lie said 1Face was a "key component". "Customers were telling us we had the right technology, but if we were to really help them they wanted the transaction capabilities on their own website."


Regular software updates will be free of charge to purchasers of Commerce Platform 2.1 on an eight- to 12-week release schedule basis. A team of 30 developers is working exclusively on the Platform, which will be available in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.


Story by Andy Scott