Poaching your Business

As some markets gear back up with Multi-Family, Motels/Hotels, office buildings and including commercial  jobs, some distributors are seeing Grainger appear on the same job sites that the distributor has a project order.

Grainger Radio ads

For some two to three years, if you got up early enough and you listened to the sports radio channels, you would probably heard Grainger radio ads extorting the listener to either pickup products, receive next day delivery or to let Grainger deliver to your location. They continue to plug Internet ordering, with good reason. The growth in sales off their web site has received big headlines. Reportedly, 30% of Grainger sales come from their website!

Many of my distributor friends mentally wrote this off as an ad for rural/ farm and ranch businesses that would never invade the Mighty Electrical Distributor area of service. Many of my friends assumed that Grainger got a piece of their business, but that they weren’t a full blown competitor. And for many, that was OK with them. Times have changed.

Then and Now

Starting some ten years or so ago, Electrical Distributors were feeling the effects of opening a new place of business (Web Store Front). The Electrical Distributor market in general marveled as companies like Automation Direct sold across territorial lines. They could service their sales 24 x 7 and get product to customers in some cases overnight. They were poaching across your territory with a really good web site and terrific searchable product data.
Grainger got plenty of recognition with their e-commerce and specialty paper/electronic catalogs as they took one national contract after another. More importantly their sales grew at their web site.  We had many conversations with Grainger outside sales people and they would go into a mode of  “aw shucks” as they head to their next customer call as they continued to cut into maybe your sales that you thought you had all wrapped up. One distributor had had enough as he watched in amazement as a Grainger truck pulled up to deliver electrical supplies while they were delivering phase 1 on a high rise building that he thought he had a contract for all the electrical supplies.

A Call to Action

In the background this distributor had been looking for ways to increase line item sales. With my encouragement, we had surveyed his current customer base to determine what services his customers wanted. The Grainger delivery truck was like the last straw that caused a call to arms for this distributor.

Followup and add on product orders

You may not have seen this just yet, but in some markets, an Electrical Distributor has a specific designed truck that is showing up on job sites equipped to sell electrical parts and pieces all the way to tools that have been packed to slow down theft. The goal, so I am told, is to arrive about the same time as the luncheon (Roach Coach) arrives on site. The truck is outfitted with a cellular connection, an ERP terminal, a camera with a credit card terminal and register.

While the on site delivery truck was but one idea he gleaned from his customers, he will be taking steps to get the early orders as well as the follow-up orders with aggressive marketing

So the question is “anyone poaching on your sales with innovative ideas like above or do you even know what your customers want in the way of services that would bring you more business?”

What marketplace innovations are you seeing that could help you keep your customers and increase business from them?