Buyers find value in distributors’ websites
By Jim Carbone -- Purchasing, 1/15/2009 1:00:00 PM
Many distributors that specialize in small orders have improved the functionality of their websites to make it easier to search for parts and buy them on line.
Many of them have added parametric search capability and offer data sheets that are of especial interest to engineers. However, many buyers are taking advantage of the increased functionality and are using small order distributor websites to check pricing, availability, find alternate parts to support the new product introduction efforts of their companies.
Beth Ely, senior vice president and director of new channel development for Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas, heads Avnet Express, the distributor’s small order division. She says Avnet Express’ website is visited about equally by both buyers and engineers. Buyers often use the site to check the price of parts.
“Some of it is quick budgetary pricing so it may be a product they have bought before and they are checking on current availability or pricing,” she says.
Ely says Avnet Express has worked to improve cross referencing capability of the site which offers side by side part comparisons. “We offered parametric search capabilities thinking that more of an engineering offering. But we see buyers use it just as much, perhaps in support of engineering,” she says.
Increasingly buyers are using the website for alternate part sourcing, new source replacement for obsolete parts, says Ely.
Buyers also use the site to check the status their orders, whether it was a web order or an order placed with an inside sales person at a sales branch. “They can go in and check the status of those orders, get their tracking numbers, all of that activity seems to be the domain of buyers,” says Ely.
Distributor TTI also says it has boosted its website functionality by added the ability to search through order status by customer part number or by manufacturer part number. Previously, order status was limited to the TTI order number or the customer’s purchase order number for searching purposes.
Rodney Hopper, web business analyst at TTI in Fort Worth, Texas, says order status search benefits buyers because they can view all orders and their status in real time, search for invoices by part number, invoice date, invoice number or purchase order number. The tracking number and the link to freight carriers for shipments in route also may be easily accessed.
Also see:New Avnet division focuses on small orders
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