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Beware of the Hungry Giants in Your Backyard
BtoB manufacturers face rapidly changing marketplace dynamics. Cases in point are the recent announcements from Grainger and Amazon.com that foretell the Internet channel's soon to be crowned dominance. As the BtoB buyer demographic flips over from the old-line traditional to the Generation Y non-traditional, these two hungry and savvy giants are making their moves, and it's full speed ahead to eBusiness in order to capture these new self-service-driven BtoB buyers. See the "Market Trendsetter" article about Grainger, below. Also, to learn what Amazon Supply has been up to lately, click on this link to Industrial Supply Magazine Online.
Considering the dizzying array of BtoB products and suppliers emerging worldwide, buyers are literally forced to go online to serve themselves to find their ideal product fit and then make the purchase. The winning manufacturers will be those who best serve these self-service preferences of new and global online buyers, while simultaneously preserving and growing their always threatened customer base.
If the MRO marketplace is indeed accurately pegged at a $110 billion, BtoB manufacturers must forge even stronger alliances with their 3rd-party channel. Given that today's buyers rely on GoogleŽ to access manufacturers' websites to find needed products, manufacturers must have an effective process in place to convert 'discovery' into a purchase, either as a direct sale or through a channel partner. The latter can only be accomplished when manufacturers establish a tightly integrated online business relationship with their resellers. Such a seamless 'online connection' with preferred resellers is possible and affordable if manufacturers choose an eBusiness solutions provider that is well versed in multi-channel self-service eBusiness software. This is a solution that will present a seamless manufacturer-reseller connection to buyers, giving them an intuitive discover-to-buy experience that is also a pleasure to use. Manufacturers who do this will best help their value-added distributors prevent the online giants from taking away market share and in the process, win their undying loyalty.
By: Del Merenda, President, i-MARK, Inc. |
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Market Trendsetter: Recognizing their Changing Audience, Grainger is Quickly Adopting New Technology to Better Serve Buyers
Grainger knows their customers have various preferences for how they like to interact with them. Recently, in order to accommodate their growing Gen-Y buyers and other buyers who also prefer the Internet, they've made several enhancements to their bustling online channel, including a mobile website as well as a 'Click to Call/Chat' tool that compliments their already state-of-the-art e-Commerce website and plethora of electronic ordering capabilities. Read More
By: Rich Vurva, Industrial Supply Magazine |
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Altra Industrial Motion Launches Their Online Media and Literature Center and Cuts Distribution Costs by 30%!
The popularity of web self-service gives BtoB manufacturers a golden opportunity to convert their product information distribution processes from one that involves expensive labor, materials and services, to a far more cost-effective and customer-friendly, web-self-service alternative. A prime example of this was recently implemented by Massachusetts-based Altra Industrial Motion, the motion control industry leader in customer self-service. Read More
By: i-MARK, Inc. |
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