The major story in the distribution industry yesterday was Home Depot acquiring HD Supply. While many electrical distributors may wonder “why the coverage” as “we don’t compete with them”, the reality is that Home Depot and HD Supply are competing more and more with electrical distributors. Some will remember that HD Supply was conceived within Home Depot and was eventually … [Read more...] about HD Supply Goes Home
Technology & Digital
Manufacturers Integrate with Distributor eCommerce Offerings
Manufacturers are actively inquiring about distributor investment in eCommerce. Some are being proactive and offering resources to their distributors. Festo, a supplier of process control and factory automation solutions, who typically partners with automation distributors, recently developed a collaboration with Kyklo, a leading eCommerce provider that supports many … [Read more...] about Manufacturers Integrate with Distributor eCommerce Offerings
Creating lemonade at Institutions
What do market segments such as government, universities / higher education, life sciences, government / municipalities, sports teams, hospitals, agriculture have in common? While most are considered \"institutions\", they all are significant users of eProcurement / punchouts as part of their electrical buying process. They use companies such as Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer, … [Read more...] about Creating lemonade at Institutions
Place Your Content in Front of Contractors
\"Placing Your Content in Front of Contractors\" is the name of a webinar being conducted by Trimble and featuring Panduit. (If you did not attend the webinar and want to view it, click here.) Last week I saw an ad from Trimble promoting its Constructible vision and “teasing” how manufacturers can get their product in front of contractors. Further, they mentioned Panduit, … [Read more...] about Place Your Content in Front of Contractors
Evaluating eCommerce Companies, Forrester-style
COVID has heightened the benefit or, and interest in, eCommerce for electrical distributors. Our second and third COVID-19 Electrical Market Sentiment Reports have shown that those with an eCommerce offering have seen online sales increases. Further, from conversations with distributors, their site activity increased. The benefit is that these companies had lower sales declines … [Read more...] about Evaluating eCommerce Companies, Forrester-style
What Walmart Can Teach Distributors About eCommerce
A few years ago Walmart was “challenged” in eCommerce. The world’s largest retailer was being challenged by Amazon, although the two were in different segments of the market. Walmart dominated the “physical” market, Amazon the online market, however, the eCommerce market was growing at a much more rapid rate. Walmart made the determination that it wanted to compete … [Read more...] about What Walmart Can Teach Distributors About eCommerce
The Future of Counters
Distributor counter areas have been spotlighted in the first month of the COVID-19 era. Counters represent between 5-30% of a distributor’s business with the importance of counter sales being directly tied to target audience, locale and business focus. What is their future? According to our Mid-April Electrical Market Sentiment survey, 56% of distributor respondents … [Read more...] about The Future of Counters
