Two New England—based distributors of fasteners have more in common lately than counting the days until spring arrives.

Vertex Fasteners, based in Pawtucket, R.I., and Atlantic Fasteners of West Springfield, Mass., differ in size, but are dealing with comparable challenges and problems—starting with technology in general and online ordering in particular. Both offer customers the option of ordering parts online. While each company expects that option to become more frequently used, it is still "in its infancy," says Tony Peterson, president of Atlantic Fasteners.

"We know quite a few people [go online] to check stock," Peterson explains. "But in our business, when you have someone with a list of items [to buy], they'd rather call and speak to a live body who knows their account."

Mark Alperin, COO and president of Vertex, tells roughly the same story about his company and its customers.

"We now have a handful of customers who've started using our online ordering and are successfully using it," Alperin says.

Right now, though, he finds that his customers are still more comfortable using the phone or fax method of ordering parts. Alperin anticipates this will change, albeit slowly.

"Now that people are [ordering online] so much retail-wise, with hotels and flights, they are getting a little more used to doing it in their own work," he says. "Hey, it's hard to break old habits."

Atlantic is a commercial and mil-spec fastener specialist that employs 48 people at its Pawtucket location. Vertex is a master distributor and specialty manufacturer of corrosion-resistant standard inch and metric fastener products, with 11 distribution centers in the United States.

Size aside, each is doing more and more business overseas these days.

"It's a progressive, developing situation," Alperin says, referring especially to business in Taiwan and China. "And India is beginning to play a part. So it's something you have to keep up regularly, and you have to visit [countries] to find out what's going on."

Peterson says that Atlantic is "just getting started" on expanding its global reach and takes a pragmatic approach to what it can mean for his company and for U.S manufacturing in general.

"It's obvious to us there is a need out there," Peterson says, referring to overseas customers. "And it's unfortunate in a way, because it means jobs are going overseas. But for manufacturers, it means survival for them."

Both companies offer fasteners in metric measurements as well as inches. The process is not nearly as cut-and-dried, though, as "inch means America" and "metric means everywhere else."

"We have two British customers who have come to us because they want to buy inch," Atlantic's Peterson explains. "They can't get inch over there."

Conversely, he adds, more of Atlantic's U.S. customers are buying metric because they want to compete in the European market. He laughs as he tells the story of just how globally cyclical the fastener industry can be.

"We have a Chinese customer who buys an item from us which goes into furniture that they, in turn, end up selling back to Ethan Allen over here," says Peterson. "It's funny how intertwined the world is these days."

jnowlan@reedbusiness.com