Three eBusiness Keys For Beating Online Market Threats

With potential market-share threats from Amazon Business, Grainger, big-box stores and others, it’s more important than ever for electrical distributors to have a comprehensive eBusiness strategy. You’ll note that I didn’t just say an eCommerce strategy. While deploying eCommerce solutions like a web-based shopping cart is certainly an important component of an overall eBusiness strategy, it is far from the only consideration.

Here are three other essential eBusiness keys:

1. Online Product Content Engagement Under Your Brand
2. Mobile App Engagement
3. Contractor Software Engagement

If you are unfamiliar with the last key, contractor software, you could be missing the biggest eBusiness opportunity and the one most easily leveraged by existing distributors. But let’s start with product content engagement.

eBusiness Key 1: Be the Product Information Broker for Your Customer

You’ve heard the phrase “Content is King.” Distributors have historically been the primary source for product information for their customers. It was the distributor who walked in with manufacturers’ catalogs emblazoned with the distributor’s logo and introduced new products and provided training to their customers.

Unfortunately, in the internet age, many distributors have relinquished this role by redirecting customers from their websites to the manufacturers’ websites rather than providing industry search tools, product catalogs, videos and training under their own brand. You need to recapture this vital customer engagement role. Explore free third-party content solutions, supported by your manufacturers, like Electric- Smarts’ Product Content resources.

These tools don’t require IT investment and can instantly turn your website into the rich electrical product resource your customers will value. Tools include:

• A distributor-branded search engine populated with new product news, videos, feature stories, press releases and other product content matching your line card.
• Content widgets that you can feature anywhere in your website pages and automatically refresh with the latest product content.
• A branded eCatalog for your website, pre-populated with millions of electrical products, a searchable library of manufacturer catalogs, product images, spec sheets and material list-making capabilities.
• An eNewsletter builder for the easy creation, sending and management of push-email promotions complete with product content.

eBusiness Key 2: Make Sure You’re Engaging on Mobile

Your customers increasingly rely on their mobile devices in the field. They have the need for instant access to product information including spec sheets, labor-saving solutions, pricing–and of course the ability to order from you. These contractors are looking for distributors that offer the “easy button.”

There is no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to mobile app development. Take advantage of easy-to-deploy mobile app solutions that are available for both Apple and Android devices that brand-up for the electrical distributor. ElectricSmarts’ App platform comes preloaded with product content matching your line card including product data certified by IDEA. The app can connect your customers to their unique pricing and includes features like barcode scanning, geo-location of your branches and electronic order generation.

eBusiness Key 3: Connect to Contractors Within Contractor Software

As much as 50 percent or more of contractor purchasing originates from material lists created within contractor software. This is where contractors are estimating and managing their large projects. This is another opportunity to help your customers with the “easy-button.” They want to push a button in their estimating software and price out their project material lists from you in seconds. If you’re not allowing customers to access their pricing from their contractor software and automatically matching their material list to your line card, then you’re missing a major opportunity to serve your customers while systematically capturing eBusiness revenue.

ElectricSmarts’ Network processes billions of dollars in pricing requests annually between participating distributors and their customers, instantly swapping products from the distributor’s line card into the contractor’s material list during the process. This opportunity is not well understood by most distributors and unavailable to the Amazons, Graingers and big-box stores of the world. The NetPak/ NetPricer Service acts as a central hub, securely connecting your customers to their confidential pricing from all the major estimating software packages in the industry. Today’s distributors need to deploy a comprehensive array of eBusiness strategies—not only an eCommerce shopping cart, but also web-based tools that allow you to engage customers through product content, mobile apps and within contractor software.

The largest eBusiness opportunity is the big project business that originates within contractor estimating and project management software. This is where the contractor is making material selections and factoring labor costs. Those distributors that successfully create an “electronic umbilical cord” with their customers—supplying product information, pricing and “easy-button” ordering from these environments—will have a distinct competitive advantage over outside players like Amazon Business, as well as less technologically-savvy legacy distributors.