What Global Wire Exchange is

Global Wire Exchange is a marketplace for one narrow slice of the supply chain: the wire and hardware that construction crews and sign installers go through every week. Tie wire for rebar, scaffolding wire by the hundred pound coil, acoustical ceiling hanger wire, insulation supports, rider pins and stakes for corrugated signs. The full scope sits on the category index, and it is short on purpose.

There is no lumber, no rebar, no mesh and no general fasteners. That narrowness is not something we apologize for. It is the reason a buyer can find a #16 black annealed coil in two clicks instead of digging through a catalog that files wire somewhere between phone cases and lawn chairs.

Every listing in the catalog today comes from Western Steel & Wire, currently the only seller on the platform, and those listings state the wire is made in the USA. The platform is built to carry other sellers in the same lanes, on the terms set out further down.

What it solves if you are buying The price on the page is the landed cost

Freight is inside every price. Shipping shows as free at checkout because delivery is already in the figure on the product page, and nothing is added at the end.

Bid off a web page price, then find out what a hundred pound coil costs to move, and you learn why that matters more than a headline discount. A price with freight bolted on afterwards is not a price, it is an opening position.

Spec first, not keyword roulette

Buyers in this trade do not search for "wire". They search for a gauge, a coil weight and a coverage figure, so the listings lead with those.

ProductTypical useHow it is sold #16 tie wire, 0.0625 inGeneral rebar tying, bundling, fencing1 lb coil (about 100 ft) in black annealed, galvanized or stainless, 3.5 lb coil (about 340 ft), 5 lb metal or plastic spool #18 galvanized annealedLighter ties, damp or exposed conditions3.5 lb coil, 25 lb spool #20 galvanized annealedLight ties, decorative and seasonal work1/2 lb coil (about 155 ft), 25 lb spool Scaffolding tie wire, black annealedScaffold tying, high volume consumption100 lb coils, #9 through #12 #12 ceiling hanger wire, 0.1055 in, galvanized annealedSuspending an acoustical or gypsum ceiling grid100 per bundle, 12 ft lengths, about 36 lb a bundle Insulation support wireHolding batt insulation up between joists100 per box, 16 in and 24 in lengths Rider pins, #9 wire, about 5 in longStacking a rider on a 4 mm or 5 mm corrugated plastic signPacks of 10, 25, 50 and 500, standard and heavy duty

Two rules answer most gauge questions. First, a higher gauge number means thinner wire, which means more feet per pound and less strength per tie. A half pound coil of #20 carries about 155 ft, roughly 310 ft to the pound, and that goes a long way on light work while doing nothing useful at a heavy bar intersection. Second, black annealed is softer and faster to twist, so it is the default for general tying, while galvanized carries a zinc coat and is the pick when the wire will sit in damp or outdoor conditions before the work is closed up. Stainless is the third option on the #16 coil, for the tie that stays exposed for the life of the structure where rust staining is not acceptable.

The two anchors of the catalog are the tie wire category, which runs from a 1 lb top up coil to 100 lb scaffolding coils, and sign hardware, where the money is in small light parts bought in quantity rather than in coil weight.

Working out how much to order

Coverage is published per unit so the arithmetic happens before you buy rather than after. Take a worked example, and treat the input as yours to replace: if your crew averages 8 inches of wire per tie, a 340 ft coil is in the region of 500 ties. Time one pour, count the coils your crew actually opened, and you have a consumption figure worth more than any supplier estimate.

Rider pins ship in packs of 10, 25, 50 and 500, and the listings do not prescribe a count per sign, so work from what your crew actually uses across a run of signs.

On the ceiling side, #12 acoustical ceiling hanger wire is the 0.1055 in galvanized annealed wire the grid hangs from, heavy enough to carry the ceiling and soft enough to bend and tie off by hand. Hanger spacing, drop limits and how many turns go into each tie are set by your local code official and by the ceiling manufacturer's installation instructions, not by a supplier, and they vary by jurisdiction. Check both before you commit to a quantity, because the hanger count per square foot decides how many bundles the job takes.

When you need a number for a bid

Volume is handled by quote, not by hunting for a hidden price tier. Every product page carries a request a quote button, and it feeds a request for quote flow built for pallet and multi coil orders where a list price is the wrong instrument. If it is easier to describe the job than to spec the parts, use contact us and say what you are building. The answer comes from someone who handles this product, which is the other half of what a specialized marketplace is for.

What it solves if you are selling

Commission is 5% flat. No monthly fee, no listing fee, no tier to graduate into, and the same percentage whatever you list.

Where you sellPublished commissionMonthly fee Global Wire Exchange5% flat, every categoryNone Amazon, Professional planSet per category. 12% on Industrial and Scientific, 15% on Tools and Home Improvement$39.99 eBaySet per category, roughly 3% to 15%, plus a per order feeNone Walmart MarketplaceSet per category, 6% to 15%, 12% on Industrial and ScientificNone

Those are published rates as of September 2026 and all three revise them, so check the exact category you would list in rather than trusting a headline number from anyone, us included. Here is the honest part of that table: eBay's Business and Industrial rate sits near the bottom of its range, so on fee alone eBay can cost a wire seller less than we do. What it does not hand you is a buyer who already knows the gauge.

Run the fee on real product. A 100 lb coil of scaffolding tie wire listed at $539.10 carries $26.96 in commission here. The same coil at 12% costs $64.69 to sell, and at 15% it costs $80.87. Amazon and eBay both charge their percentage on the total the buyer pays, which includes the shipping portion of the sale, so a freight heavy product is where a percentage bites hardest. That is real money on every unit, before counting a subscription you are not paying.

The fee is the easy part to compare. The harder benefit is who walks in the door. Traffic here arrives searching for a gauge and a coil weight, which means fewer questions about what the product even is, fewer returns from a buyer who ordered #20 for a job that needed #16, and a shorter path from listing to order.

The sell on Global Wire Exchange page sets out how listing and payment work: free to join, no signup or listing fees, products loaded one at a time or bulk uploaded by CSV with sizes, gauges and coil variants, and Stripe payouts released once the buyer's payment clears. You open the account with business details and verification documents. Get the commission and payout terms confirmed in writing before you load a catalog, as you would with any channel.

Who this is not for

• Anyone who needs one coil today with a supply house ten minutes away. Go to the supply house.
• Anyone shopping for rebar, mesh, lumber or general fasteners. Not in this catalog.
• Sellers looking for a broad consumer audience. The traffic here is trade traffic, and it is narrow by design.

Where to start

1. Buying: open the category index, find your gauge and coil size, and check the published coverage against your own consumption.
2. Buying in volume: use the request a quote button on the listing, or describe the job through contact us and let someone spec it with you.
3. Selling: read the seller page, then open the account. There is no signup or listing fee, so finding out whether this audience buys what you stock costs only the time to load a listing.

That is the whole proposition. A narrow catalog, freight inside the price, quotes for volume, and 5% for the people who supply it.