Though his company may have been "a bit late in the game" when it came to e-commerce, Jim Scardina and the e-commerce Web site for Bearing Headquarters have certainly caught up to, and probably surpassed, some of those distributorships that jumped on this trend a few years ago.

Opened up for business on April 1, 2005, BHQ Express, www.bearingheadquarters.com, is an example of a simple e-commerce site on steroids, offering more consumer-friendly perks and capabilities than most Web sites, and striving to keep its customers on top of their own game.

"The Web site has changed the company a lot," Scardina, senior vice president for major marketing and national accounts, says of Bearing Headquarters, Inc., a bearings and power transmission distributor headquartered in Broadview, Ill. "Customers doing their ordering on the Web is less work for the sales and customer service forces, as the orders go right into our system."

According to Scardina, customer reactions to the site have been enthusiastic, and the site boasts almost 300 registered customers. More are signing up everyday, including new business from other areas of the country.

"Along with the sales staff, we promoted the site through mail campaigns and meetings with customers at conferences," says Scardina. "One customer called a salesperson with a question, and while looking up the information on the product, the salesperson mentioned that the customer could do it himself online. The customer registered online that day."

BHQ Express has a range of options on its site that would make any IT guy blush, including: up-to-the-minute pricing and availability; password protection; discretionary level permissions; account set up; locating and selecting inventory; "next" and "previous" search results; narrowing down through broad categories to a specific product; importing external order information; order tracking; invoice and statement viewing; and online help on every page.

For the company's larger customers, an online price book is also available, where the site has the customer's specific product pricing on file. These customers also are able to search through the company's products by their own part numbers, rather than by the manufacturer's part numbers.

"That, in itself, makes the site so much easier for some of our customers," says Scardina.

And, if a customer frequently orders a specific group of products, the site will make note of that and will group the products in that quantity in the customer's shopping cart each time they log on. Also, all orders are saved in the cart until an order is submitted, so a customer could shop and add products all week and submit their order Friday.

The company also will soon be adding a dimensional capability to the product categories, where customers will be able to see 3D pictures of the products with all their dimensional information.

Explains Scardina, "We interviewed several software companies, looked at what they had to offer, ultimately decided on one, and then added all the things we thought our customers would use. Our goal for 2006 is to have more than 500 online customers, but my personal goal is to triple our current number. I think we're on track to do that."

kgriffiths@reedbusiness.com