Distribution and the Internet
By John J Keough -- Industrial Distribution, 7/1/1998
The explosive growth of the Internet can clearly be seen in Industrial Distribution's 52nd Annual Survey of Distributor Operations. The survey results, released this month, show that 67 percent of respondents now have access to the Internet.A breakdown of those figures shows that 91 percent of distributors with sales of $20 million or more have access to the Internet, while 81 percent of distributors with less than $10 million in sales have access. However, only 44 percent of distributors with sales of less than $5 million have Web access.
Of those distributors using the Internet, 99 percent use it daily. And 69 percent of distributors who say they do not currently have access to the Internet will have access within the next 18 months.
How do distributors use the Internet? A total of 87 percent use it for e-mail; 79 percent for competitive information; 77 percent for product information and evaluation; 59 percent for communication/bulletin boards; 58 percent for news and information; and 46 percent for product directories.
At ID for example, we've tried to make it as easy as possible for you to view the latest new product information. You can see hundreds of new products in this issue, and even more by visiting our home page at http://www.inddist.com.
In addition to having Internet access, more and more distributors are actually hosting Web sites. A total of 49 percent of the respondents to the survey said they now have such sites. About one fifth of the distributors with sales of less than $5 million have Web sites, while 88 percent of distributors with sales of more than $20 million have sites.
Another interesting statistic gleaned from this year's survey is that 56 percent of distributors with Web sites have sold products from those sites.
The bottom line is that the Internet is proving to be a valuable tool for industrial distributors. For example, a distributor we know had a customer who needed a rare type of bearing -- one that wasn't in stock. He found it during an Internet search.
The Internet is not a threat to the local distributor. Instead, it is a way for him to promote his products and his company on the Web. A properly designed Web site can be a huge advantage to a distributor, whether he is small or large. In some cases it can create an important presence for the distributor.
Putting your company online is not a luxury; in fact, it may soon become a necessity. Use it now to your advantage and it may keep you one step ahead of your competitors rather than one step behind.
If you would like a copy of ID's 52nd Annual Survey, which was conducted in conjunction with Texas A&M University to identify trends and issues affecting the distribution community, please telephone Muriel Donohue at (617) 558-4504. The cost of the study is $495.
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