Grainger frequently is a good bellwether for the industrial market given their MRO focus on Fortune 500 industrial accounts. Grainger\'s performance highlights that the industrial MRO rate of growth decelerated significantly. Q2 Report From their quarterly report and slide presentation: Started off saying “the demand environment has softened throughout the year.”They … [Read more...] about Grainger Q2 Sales Slow … Industrial Indicator?
Marketing
Is your supplier finding leads and business, online, for you?
ABB recently launched a new initiative, eFinder, that enables visitors to its website to purchase material online. But they are not disintermediating the channel. Instead they are providing distributors with the opportunity to generate incremental business online. And at the same time they are generating leads. The eFinder tool enables distributors with a commerce-enabled … [Read more...] about Is your supplier finding leads and business, online, for you?
Compete for Grainger’s Business: eProcurement
Many industrially-oriented distributors lament that they can’t compete versus Grainger for MRO business at their accounts. They say “we now the ‘decision’ makers and can beat them on price but we can’t get the business. The same occurs with large institutional accounts (educational and healthcare facilities.) And the reality is Grainger does $1-2 billion in electrical … [Read more...] about Compete for Grainger’s Business: eProcurement
Reducing Tax Implications of Incentive Travel Programs
This week WESCO is taking 800+ people on an Alaskan cruise as part of their WESCO VIP incentive program. It looks like an exciting adventure (check out this pre-program video and follow them on their program Instagram page or on PicDeer) for probably 250+ contractor customers (plus spouses, extra trips earned), salespeople / corporate staffs and spouses as well as sponsoring … [Read more...] about Reducing Tax Implications of Incentive Travel Programs
eCommerce in the Channel
During recent calls with distributors to get the pulse of the industry, one area we touched on is eCommerce and specifically the activity that they are seeing from their customers, the investments that they are making and how it is impacting their overall business. A few trends emerged: All “complained” that they wonder where the business is. They hear that Amazon … [Read more...] about eCommerce in the Channel
Home Depot Orange Coming to Your Customer
The color orange signifies joy, happiness and creativity, however, it is also representative of fire and, given that the color is between yellow and red on the color spectrum it is, from a business perspective, between caution (yellow) and “bad” (red). And it’s the color of Home Depot and many distributors may be seeing Home Depot trucks visiting their contractors in the … [Read more...] about Home Depot Orange Coming to Your Customer
Does it feel like we’re heading into a recession …
Or are we talking ourselves into a recession? Since the fall and the beginning of planning season there have been some economists who have been warning of a second half 2019 slowdown leading to a 2020 recession. Their prognostications were based upon some trends, the fact that we’ve been in a growth cycle for awhile and “are due”, the last year’s tariffs and the one that was … [Read more...] about Does it feel like we’re heading into a recession …
Embracing Digital Connections…Texting
Yes, we’ve all seen it and most of us have done it…multi-tasking by listening and texting, reading and texting, sending a quick text to touch base or share a piece of information and more. While many thought “texting is for our kids”, it is now mainstream and becoming further integrated into everyday business. We’ve heard of distributor salespeople getting texts from their … [Read more...] about Embracing Digital Connections…Texting
Slow Growth in Industrial MRO … Grainger Reports
The industrial MRO market appears to have slowed its rate of growth as evidenced by Grainger’s 2019 first quarter report. While Grainger is much more than electrical products, products commonly associated with the electrical industry (electrical, lighting, motors) represent 9% of sales with power and hand tools representing another 10% according to Grainger’s 2019 Fact Sheet, … [Read more...] about Slow Growth in Industrial MRO … Grainger Reports
Amazon Business is a Nominal Electrical Distributor Competitor
Interesting article in Electrical Wholesaling, “Amazon Business is Growing. Do Distributors Have a Plan” written by Unilog essentially saying you need to either join or fight Amazon Business because they are / will be taking over the distribution business (and since Unilog placed this article in EW, presumably they believe that the electrical channel is at risk.) The article, … [Read more...] about Amazon Business is a Nominal Electrical Distributor Competitor
