Border States and Reynolds – Customer Service, Omni-Channel or Reacting to Amazon Supply

Earlier this month both Border States and Reynolds Electric launched new online sites with robust eCommerce systems. While neither is currently a national distributor, their size, financial resources, access to capital (financial and human) and, in the size of Border States
geographic coverage, provides them the opportunity to let their “shadow be bigger than their company.”  In essence, with the right plan, they could become a competitor to every distributor…

Or, they could focus solely on their existing customers and focus their eCommerce efforts as an alternative order entry system for their existing customers, hence focusing on a value-added service to their customer base …

Or, they could have observed and listened to what Amazon Supply is building and decided to react, like many others have …

Or, they could be broadening their sales efforts within their territories to new customers, new market segments as well as to existing customers, hence offering an omni-channel approach.

Last month we wrote an article for Electrical Wholesaling providing Amazon Supply insights and a road map for distributors who want to compete against from.  And at the same time there are a number of distributors who are enabling them in search of “short” dollars anxious to pick up some sales (with the belief that “if I don’t sell them, someone else will”).

The question becomes, recognizing that an increasing percentage of industry sales are migrating to the web (it may be a small percentage, but it is increasing), are you looking at your business with a long-term or short-term perspective? It takes a minimum of six months to launch a robust site, let alone data, marketing and personnel investments. There is software that integrates with industry ERP systems that competes well with Amazon Supply.  We’ve viewed both Second Phase and Unilog, both of which enable distributors to either improve customer service, facilitate an omni-channel strategy or compete (or react) to Amazon Supply (and we’re sure that there are other systems that we are not aware of that have experience in this space.)

What’s your experience with eCommerce? Have any of your customers purchased from Amazon Supply? What’s your next step?  And if you have a robust eCommerce site, which system are you using (or have looked at)?

And if you’d like either Allen or David to send you a copy of the EW article, let us know.