When the Independent Distributors Cooperative-USA held its annual Spring Meeting in Indianapolis recently, it saw the event draw record numbers—reflective of a positive outlook, both towards the IDC and the economy in general, said IDC president Jack Bailey.

"Everybody [there] was pleased because they see the market coming back," Bailey said.

The meeting attracted 57 distributors and 36 manufacturers with more than 200 people attending the meeting's awards banquet on the final night, Bailey added.

"The industry went through what I call the '2001–2–3 slump,'" Bailey explained. "When the industry went through that slump, [it made] our distributors really look at their bottom line and what it would take to survive. And when they did that...a lot of buying habits were changed."

IDC announced at the meeting that it has now seen four straight years of sales growth with three of those years showing growth in double digits, Bailey said. Last year, IDC's sales were up by 16.5 percent over '03.

One reason for this, Bailey pointed out, is the growth of IDC's Web site—51 percent of IDC orders are placed via their Web site. In an industry where some distributors are happy to see 5–10 percent of their sales come online, IDC's number stands out.

"We don't even call it our Web site anymore but rather our e-commerce site," Bailey said. "One of the first things we did in designing the site was to ensure that it was easy to use. Our members can also use it to check their own usage history and see, for example, what part numbers they purchased the past year. So it's now such a conduit for our members to get inside our warehouse."

Not everything at the IDC Spring Meeting was upbeat and rosy, however. Bailey said that one of the topics discussed was "what are domestic manufacturers going to do? What is their next move with regard to global sourcing? Are they going to stick their heads in the sand and act as of [global sourcing] is going to go away? Are they going to work within themselves to become competitive in the global marketplace?"

Bailey added that some IDC members were concerned that, if such problems aren't confronted effectively, manufacturers ran the risk of "becoming little more than glorified importers. It's a huge topic."