Distributors Keep Truckin' Along the Information Highway

In just 10 years, the World Wide Web has become so embedded in the electronics supply chain that most engineers don’t think twice before searching a distributor’s site for component specifications, pricing or availability. But despite the advances made since the industry’s first sites were launched in the mid-1990s, distributors say that their Web presence is still very much a work in progress.

“We are introducing new features and functions to our site every few weeks,” says Beth Ely, senior vice president and director of new channel development for Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas, Phoenix. Through the years, the Avnet site has evolved from being almost entirely informational to containing a balanced mix of information and commerce that mirrors Avnet’s end-to-end customer support model.

“On the front-end, our site users need information to determine their selection in a new design, and on the back-end, they need to ensure that the products they select can be supported in volume through the entire life cycle of that product,” says Ely. To handle these requirements, Avnet is continually increasing the number of parts available in sample quantities through the Web site, Ely notes. In addition, the site offers the capability of building preferences into the search selection process, so that engineers and purchasers are not just getting the part that’s easiest to find on the Web, but the one that will be most readily supported in production. “What we hear often from customers is, ‘Don’t open a window for the engineer to select a part that will cause problems for the purchasing team when it goes into production.’”

Although e-commerce sales still represent only a fraction of most distributors’ total sales, distributor Web sites remain a vital element of how a company markets itself to its customers, says Craig Conrad, senior vice president, chief marketing and strategic planning officer at TTI Inc., Fort Worth, Texas. “Our internal surveys indicate that in excess of 75 percent of customers go to the Web to find parts before they buy. Although they may not necessarily buy through the Web, they find the inventory and make the sourcing decisions based on the information they get online.”

Just as consumers more frequently turn to the Web to comparison shop and research the businesses from which they consider making a purchase, members of the electronics supply chain use the Web for their due diligence in terms of investigating new sources of supply. “The Web can be the first impression a potential customer has of your company,” says Conrad. In fact, the 2007 Distributor Buying Trends Survey by GlobalSpec Inc., Troy, N.Y., found that 78 percent of respondents turn to search engines, online directories or Web sites first to find new distributors.

Respondents to the GlobalSpec survey cite the ability to search online catalogs by part specifications among the top five highest-rated features of a distributor’s Web site. TTI’s Conrad notes TTI has significantly enhanced its online product-search features in recent months, and its online search process now includes the ability to search by part number, key word, manufacturer or product type. “Clearly, the vast majority of traffic through our Web site is looking for parts.”

At Avnet, as part of its focus on ease-of-use, the distributor has repositioned its site features to enable customers to transact purchases from the lead home page. “Our belief is that someone coming to our site to make a purchase wants a part fast and wants to transact that purchase quickly. So, we’ve put the commerce piece on the front-end of the site.” Avnet’s online catalog is also searchable by manufacturer’s part number, the customer’s own internal part numbers, or even by part attributes. “If a user doesn’t know the part number of a particular component, he or she can input the specifications and we will lead the user to the most commonly available parts within those parameters,” says Ely.

National Electronic Distributors Association (NEDA) Executive Vice President Robin Gray believes the distribution sector will continue to pave the way for the entire supply chain on the information superhighway. “Authorized electronic component distributors were among the early adopters of the Internet technology — particularly in terms of putting catalogs online and offering technical specifications,” he says. “Today, distributors recognize that they are in a unique position in the Information Age. Just as product flows from the manufacturer through the authorized channel, a lot of information does as well. Distributors are learning to use that information to better serve their customers and their suppliers.”