Net gains
By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 6/1/1998
When Peter Grimes, vice president of American Hose & Fittings, saw each of his manufacturers putting up Web sites, he jumped on the Internet bandwagon immediately. That was two years ago, and Grimes is excited about the $50,000 in new business generated by the Web site."There is a lot of interest in the Web," Grimes says. "It is a necessary adjunct from the vendor and customer standpoint."
According to Grimes, American Hose has a Web site for three specific reasons:
1. It is very inexpensive advertising
2. It lets customers know American Hose & Fittings is knowledgeable about technology
3. It profiles the company for vendors -- both existing and potential suppliers
Grimes attributes part of the site's success to the input received from vendors.
"Our site is unique because we represent our manufacturers much more graphically with photos of their products," he adds. "However, we don't link them because we want our site to be the end of their search, not the link to the beginning of a search for other distributors."
Grimes created and maintains the American Hose Web site, purchasing a scanner and contacting suppliers for electronic images. "I used Adobe Pagemill for creating and maintaining our Web site, held on a local server for $55 a month," he says. "The local server helped me contact Internic for obtaining our web address.
"I also cobbled together information from other similar Web sites," he adds. "Once the Web site was created maintaining it has been easy. I transfer files electronically using free software and upload my Web page after I make changes, maybe one half hour total time per week," he adds.
Grimes says many site visitors are price shoppers. On average, the site generates 10 to 20 e-mails a week, some from as far away as Tahiti. To date, the site has added $50,000 in new business for the company. The e-mails fall into three categories: very small quantity end-user inquiries; price shoppers; and international and out-of-state inquiries.
"We prefer to speak to the customer on a one-to-one basis to solve their problems. Especially with hose, there is always the risk of misapplication," he says. In fact, depending on the type of lead, American Hose may choose not to pursue the order. Often, Grimes will refer out-of-state requests to fellow NAHAD members.
"Our ratio of sales to leads is pretty poor," he adds.
Still, Grimes is hopeful that number will pick up as the quality of leads improves.
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