On our chemical supplier catalog updates. Again...

A year ago I wrote that for your chemical sourcing to be as reliable and practical as possible, it is essential to have an up-to-date compound database. Monthly or even quarterly catalog updates sound reliable enough to most computational chemists. But that is just because historically computational chemists were lucky to have an annual update that was not “polluted” with made-to-order compounds.

 

Ever needed 10 mg of compounds but were told that only 7 are available, or maybe just 4!? If you know the available amount of the compound for each supplier, you can pick the one that has enough in the warehouse. What if it is 10 dollars more expensive!? It is the only available purchase option!

 

Two factors contribute to reliable ordering:

• Information is updated frequently;
• Warehouse inventory is known. 

After a year’s work, among other things, we have negotiated daily warehouse inventory synchronization with four suppliers (ChemDiv, Enamine, Life Chemicals, Specs: 3.0 million unique compounds), and a bit less frequent updates with another 6 suppliers: (AnalytiCon, Key Organics, InterBioScreen, Mir Biotech, Princeton BioMolecular Research, Vitas-M Laboratory: an additional 1.1 million compounds).

 

MolPort available compound database summary

Quick Order products can be orders online at www.molport.com without getting a quote from MolPort first.

 

What does it mean to you, the buyer? Buying one of any of the 3.0 million compounds that we update daily is nearly guaranteed it will be in delivered. An additional 1.1 million compounds can be bought nearly as reliably as their warehouse inventory is known too. So if you come to MolPort for screening compound sourcing, we will give you a quick, reliable and simple quote out of 4.1 million compounds. Just place an order and wait for the delivery. A quote covering 18 screening compouns suppliers and 4.9 million compounds is almost as easy, but it takes 1 to 2 business days to prepare it (we confirm compound availability). Of course, we will still do a comprehensive search of our database of 9.7 million compounds offline, if you will request. 

 

And you can get this information not only at the ordering time, but at any stage of your virtual screening project by using our compound availability webservices. Now it works with InChI keys as well.

 

Here is the list of MolPort online chemical shop suppliers and when their catalog was updated.

MolPort screening compound online sourcing tool? Coming soon...

The new online shop is now up and running, but work doesn’t end there. Our next big improvement coming your way will be especially interesting for computational chemists. We are making a screening compound online sourcing tool. You can already order screening compounds via MolPort the old way, but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have a shopping cart big enough for purchases like long lists of screening compounds where you can easilly overesee what’s in it!?

Let me give you a first look into what’s coming. Before you continue, however, let me tell that we are also looking for volunteers that would like to test it and help us make the user interface intuitive and easy to use. You can register here to participate by marking the I want to use the screening compound sourcing tool box in the registration page.

Step 1: Let MolPort know what you are looking for

To use this service, you need to be a registered MolPort user. When you log in to your first page you will be able to see all requests you have made. To start a new request you  will have to upload an SDF file or Text, CSV or Excel tables with SMILES strings or database IDs (MolPort, ZINC, PubChem, etc.) and specify order details (required quantity, lead time, stereochemistry, format, etc.).

If your order is large, it may take few minutes for our sourcing engine to do its magic and to fill your shopping cart. There will be no need to wait around. While we process the file you can review other requests or simply close your session and return later to see the calculated results (we will send you an email notification when it is done).

Step 2: Check out your order summary and play with delivery options

This is the really interesting part. Once the sourcing engine will finish it’s job, you will see right there on your screen how many compounds are availabe and how many are not. The screening automaton, as we call it, will also calculat the final price for you. And not just one final price. In addition to the one that’s optimized MolPort style – the MolPort recommended, you can also see how the prices and delivery times look sorted by lowest price or smallest number of suppliers. As time goes on there will be more and more options for customizing your final offer, but more on that you will be able to read in another post.

Step 3: Confirm order and pay

As usual, once you have decided on which calculated option to choose, a simple check out process will set things into motion to deliver your compounds to you.

And that is really all about. No more need to email suppliers or MolPort. In one short session you will be able to go from your original compound list to a finished order.

Liked what you saw? Of course, nothing is written in stone yet so if you are interested in being among the first to test drive the new tool and help us make it exactly what you want it to be, come register here by marking the I want to use the screening compound sourcing tool box and participate.

Ready, steady, go - MolPort redesigned online shop is open!

After all the work this moment has finally come - our new online shop is ready. We have cut the ribbon today and I am inviting you in to have a look around and fill your brand new shopping cart. Here is what I mean - let me give you a tour.

Searching for molecules is still just what you were used to - you can text search, browse through the periodic table or draw your desired structure or parts of it. Once you push the search button, you will start to really notice the differences. The search results page will show you the usual basic information and give you an instant clue about how soon you might get to your lab what you need - see the availability tags.


Found something interesting? Once you click on the See It button you will find the usual detailed information about the molecule like names and notations. What's new and special comes a bit lower down.

We have made some big steps towards helping you too understand from the very start of your purchase what costs how much and what the final price will be. Thanks to improvements in logistics on our part we have split delivery costs according to regions and you can see them immediately for each of the compounds under Shipping and Handling. You will also see right away if there is a minimum order fee for the compound you are interested in.


We also want you to know how much you can trust the accuracy of the information about availability of the compounds you are ordering. So, we have added information about last synchronization of our and supplier warehouse databases. Already now we have several suppliers who are sending us these updates daily and we are working hard to convince more and more of them to join.

We have also reorganized what you see when checking out what's in the shopping cart. Even though the first summary page will not show you the shipment costs, you can proceed to check out, fill in your contact details to see the order summary which we have sorted by suppliers. Here you can really see what costs how much - price of compounds, minimum order fees, delivery costs from each of the suppliers (or the extra cost of us taking care of putting it all into one handy package so you don't have to deal with receiving several packages and doing customs for all of them), and the total order value, of course.




I do really think this is the right way forward how shopping for rare chemical compounds should be done - simple, transparent, convenient, and easy on the eyes for you as a customer. What do you say?