“UNBELIEVABLE, ONLY ONE California distributor had a link!” In my recent opening keynote presentation for a group of industrial distributors, I made this alarming announcement. Upon visiting a major manufacturer’s Web site, I conducted a distributor search for California. When the list appeared on my screen, only one distributor listed had a link to its site from the manufacturer’s site. It’s unfortunate so many distributors are slow to partner with their principal suppliers. For some distributors, it is because they do not yet have a Web site, hard as that is to believe. And for others, it is a trust issue. Some distributors still believe by sharing information, they will lose customers. How wrong they are.
Your customers might not be getting any younger, but their purchasing staff most certainly is. With this youth also comes new ways of doing business. Younger people are quite comfortable with the Internet and many prefer e-commerce to “bothersome” visits from your reps. Just the other day upon leaving for school, my nine-year-old son asked my wife to find him some pictures of jellyfish for a school project. He proceeded to explain to her how to go to Yahoo.com and so forth to find the pictures he needed. She thought it was so cute. For technophobes, it’s a wake up call!
E-commerce is taking on several forms from the straightforward Amazon.com style of giving your credit card number, selecting the items you want and receiving your purchase a few days later via a delivery company, to more sophisticated arrangements similar to what the travel industry is doing. I personally find CheapTickets.com both a convenience and a time saver, giving me a wonderful choice on my air travel needs. I had never considered that as a possibility, until my travel agent started tacking on a $10 per ticket booking fee. The new business strategy did not add value to our relationship in my eyes. Needless to say, I am no longer a client.
Back to the younger purchasing agent trying to work his or her way up the corporate ladder. He or she is putting in extra hours and working late. Since it is late and manufacturers are closed, the agent goes to PMDM.com looking for a particular product supplier and finds what is needed. As with the earlier mentioned example, if there is only one distributor with a product, that is where the purchaser goes. Will that be you?
I once listened to Tim Underhill explain to a group of distributors how their customers frequently pay three times for the same shipping and handling services in a discussion on the value of integrated supply. I sure do not want to pay thrice for a product or service, nor do your customers. In distribution today, the game is adding value and streamlining costs in the distribution chain, not simply adding cost. While we are still in the early stages of e-commerce, sooner than you think, your customers will be demanding the capability of you. Will you be left in the cold?
When I started my career in outside sales in the mid 1970s, my boss, Ray Kahn, told me that if I lost a major customer while paying
attention and doing everything I could to keep him or her happy, he could live with it. But, if I lost a major customer because I was not paying attention, he’d fire me. Was he serious? Absolutely. One of my colleagues got the axe for just that reason. If you lose customers because you are asleep at the wheel in regards to the Internet and e-commerce, should your clients fire you?
