The modern business climate is constantly changing, adapting, and evolving. For distributors in the cleaning industry, product innovations, market conditions, price fluctuations, and an uncertain economy all contribute to rapid change and growth.

In the midst of all this complexity, the Internet age of business has dawned, creating new opportunities, risks, and challenges. Through exploration, innovation, and old-fashioned trial-and-error, some distributors in the cleaning industry have found ways to expand their businesses by increasing their competitive advantages. This article profiles the unique e-business strategies of three cleaning industry companies as they have evolved with market changes. Their experiences have also changed their attitudes toward e-business, and along the way they have closely watched and observed the Internet’s integration into the industry.

Bockstanz Brothers
Bockstanz Brothers, a Detroit-based distributor of janitorial products, launched its Web presence approximately four years ago in conjunction with International Distribution Systems (IDS), a marketing and buying group composed of about 70 distributors throughout the country. Because IDS began receiving additional requests for information from its customers, Bockstanz volunteered to create the collective IDS website as a cleaning resource center. The initial site included training information, cleaning and safety tips, and a membership directory. This year, product, pricing, and ordering information was added.

“The website has been rather successful — it has generated about 2000 requests for product information in two years,” reports Jack Bockstanz, president of Bockstanz Brothers. “As a customer requests pricing information on products and equipment, the request is sent to the individual distributor who is located closest to the customer.”

Although the site has added product information, it does not include general, open transaction capability. “It is not an e-commerce site at this point,” Bockstanz explains. However, the site uses a shopping-cart program to allow registered customers to place orders online.

Although the IDS website contains information exclusively on IDS products and services, Bockstanz has also developed its own corporate site. Bockstanz tailored this site to give customers specific information about the products and procedures they are using.

“The problem with the Internet is that it often provides too much information, and the customer has to wade through a lot of information in order to find what they are looking for,” Bockstanz explains. “Our website is designed so that each customer has a sub-site set up under our site, which is dedicated to information about their account, specific products, and the cleaning techniques they are using. They also have the ability to order online if it is convenient for them — all they have to do is put in the quantity of the item and where they want it sent.

Bockstanz’s investment in e-business evolved gradually over time. “My staff and I did some of the design work and implementation, which was less expensive than using an outside source,” he reports. “However, most other distributors may not necessarily have the knowledge, staff, or desire to do their own site.”

Bockstanz was initially hesitant about e-business strategies. “Initially I had my doubts about e-commerce in our industry, because I thought there wouldn’t be a lot of large end users who would be going online to search for products that they already had contracts for,” he says. “But in the past few years, several large companies have looked for alternative sourcing and have found it over the Internet. Although in the past, companies’ primary source of information has been through sales calls, the Internet gives them another source of information about who else has product lines they may not have been aware of.” He adds that distributors that have a Web presence may be able to take advantage of new business from customers who are looking for alternative sourcing; for instance, if their main supplier is temporarily out of stock of a certain item.

Tangent Industries
Tangent Industries, a manufacturer and distributor located in Atlanta, launched a Web presence in 1999, “when we felt that it was the right time to do it,” says Bert Bellinson, president of Tangent.

“Our website was launched in order to help our customers begin to use the Internet, but what we found was that some of our customers really didn’t have Internet capability yet, or they just aren’t tuned into the Web,” Bellinson explains. “Because we deal with end users, we know that they aren’t interested in sitting on the Internet looking for price comparisons like sophisticated purchasing agents do — they are out cleaning.”

The company’s website contains general company information and a professional overview of the products and services Tangent offers. It also provides basic product information, advertises seasonal promotions, and describes the company’s charity involvement.

Although the site contains basic product information, it does not offer information about pricing and availability, a deliberate business strategy employed by Tangent. “We don’t sell on price, because we focus on problem-solving,” Bellinson explains. “We want to make sure that the customer is getting the product they need, not just what they think they need or see on the Internet. We want them to contact us to place their orders so that we can ensure they are buying the correct product for their needs.”

Bellinson sees his company’s web capability as an additional marketing tool. “Most of our website strategy has been to generate a non-telephone-call request for information — it’s more for education than for anything else,” Bellinson says. “However, we have not seen a reduction in the call volume to our salespeople, because they are still involved in the ordering process with our customers.”

Although Tangent has purchased transaction capability — a shopping-cart type software package — and has twice set out to implement it, both times the company decided at the last minute not to make use of it. “Before we put it up we did focus groups, and the focus groups told us it wasn’t easy enough to use, so we decided not to use it for the time being,” Bellinson explains.

Bunzl Distribution
Bunzl Distribution, a St. Louis-based wholesaler of sanitary supplies, launched its website in 1996 and has gradually expanded the site’s capabilities since then. The initial website was informational only, and contained general company information, including corporate directories, maps of locations, financial information, and details about the company’s history. A year later, new capabilities were added to the website, including features about new products; links to customers, suppliers, trade industries, and affiliated companies; and a restricted-access section which allows Bunzl employees to view information from the company’s human resources department.

Bunzl waited until 1999 to launch its e-commerce capabilities, mainly because distributors were just beginning to develop wider access to the Internet. “In 1999 it was almost like a ‘Field of Dreams’ strategy — ‘if you build it, they will come,’” reports Eric Peabody, director of market research and development at Bunzl. “Before that time, there weren’t any reasons to add it because most distributors didn’t have access to the Web.”

Bunzl’s e-commerce capabilities are restricted to distributors who have existing accounts with the company; the distributors are given a login password by their sales representative. “When our customers are looking to buy a new product, they have a lot of questions they want answered: Do you have this product? Is it stocked in my local warehouse? Is it available now? What is the price?” Peabody explains. “The customer needs to know right now, so it’s important that they get real-time information, and they can access that information on the Internet.”

Sharing information has been a key function of the website; for example, 70 percent of the website’s hits fall into four main categories of information requests: product search, product availability, price confirmation, and order status. “Although sales have increased, what we’re really seeing is an awful lot of access and page use for customers who are registered to use the site, who are searching for product pricing and availability, but who are not putting their transactions through the site,” Peabody reports.

The ultimate goal of Bunzl’s Web strategy is to increase the efficiency of its sales staff. “It takes a long time to train customer service representatives and salespeople,” says Peabody. “If we can mediate the most common points of contact over the Internet, and automate the most common points of information, we are making better use of our sales force’s time.”

Peabody acknowledged a significant investment in his company’s e-business strategy, including time, money, staffing, and resources. “The most significant investment we made was in item content — creating a digital database, pictures, and robust content,” he says. “We wanted our customers to have accurate information that was provided in both graphical and text form.”

Internet Evolution
Based on their experiences, all three industry experts were quick to make predictions about future Internet innovations that may change the way the janitorial and sanitary supply industries do business.

“From the distributors’ point of view, as their end users have wider access to the Internet, they will be able to conduct more e-commerce online,” Peabody reasons. “The proliferation of Internet access continues to spread at a faster rate, and as usership goes up, transactions and every other measurable statistic continue to increase on a monthly basis.”

Peabody also sees whole new markets opening up for distributors who are able to find niches in the industry. “A distributor might become a secondary supplier source for customers who are looking for line extensions or fill-ins when their manufacturer is out of the product,” he explains.

“As one of a number of secondary suppliers they could choose, if you use the Internet to make it easier for them to shop with you, you will get more line-item business.”

Although most distributors are business-to-business companies that aren’t designed to make small-order sales, Bellinson cautions distributors to keep this market open if feasible. “One time a homeowner purchased a very small order — maybe one bottle of cleaning solution,” he recalls. “That order wasn’t profitable for us, but you just never know. The next year this customer took a job as a purchasing agent for a city, and he generated a lot of large orders for us. So you never want to turn people away from buying from you.”

Bellinson believes an innovative use of technology is to provide more specialty sources of information online, such as material safety data sheets and training videos. “If the training video is online, it can be a valuable marketing tool,” he says. “If a salesperson is with a customer and doesn’t have the particular product along to demonstrate, they can view the video together on the Web.”

Customers have complained to Bockstanz that most standard e-commerce sites with shopping carts require customers to enter their order information twice — once on the Internet, and then again into their own in-house purchasing system. In fact, for this very reason most of Bockstanz’s customers do not place their orders directly on the Internet, but instead order products by faxing the order information sheet that has been printed out from their own purchasing system. “A new innovation for the future may be a program like the one ISSA has teamed up with Networld to produce — one that is capable of linking the customer’s order in their in-house system with the distributor’s computer via the Internet,” he says.

Technology is always evolving, which allows for a wide variety of information to be available to customers during the ordering process. “In the future all the ordering information will be available over the Internet, including order processing, shipping information, pickup, and delivery,” Bockstanz predicts.

Although many changes are possible as the business world begins to integrate Web technology more fully, Peabody believes the Internet will not fundamentally change business, but will improve it. “Through my experience, I’ve learned — or more accurately, confirmed — that dotcom-only companies are not going to threaten our industry. But the ‘bricks and clicks’ companies — those companies that have the infrastructure in place to use e-commerce as one more tool to make themselves accessible to their customers — will be the ones that will really flourish.

“The Internet is really like the fax machine was 20 years ago,” Peabody concludes. “It is just the next tool that makes business easier. If you over-invest in it, you will be disappointed, but if you under-invest you risk being swept away.”

Lynne Knobloch is a freelance writer based in Glenview, Ill.

E-Marketplace Guidelines Online

With the increasing number of e-marketplaces springing up in recent years, costly and time-consuming problems have arisen. Designed to bring together buyers and sellers of maintenance products and services, the implementation of the e-marketplaces are bogged down by multiple agreement forms and prolonged negotiations for participation.

To make the process easier and less time-intensive, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), with the help of a distributor task force, has crafted a set of voluntary guidelines for e-marketplace participants. The guidelines cover content issues, intellectual property, data transfer security and more, and are intended to promote quicker negotiation and execution of participation agreements for e-marketplaces. The guidelines in full.

Perk Up Your Site

Adding certain “freebies” or extras to your website could help keep customers coming back for more. At the Irwin Pollack Company web site you’ll find helpful hints such as:

  • Set up a ‘daily click’ section that draws people to your site on a daily basis by using daily stock quotes, lottery numbers, horoscopes, etc.

  • Implement a reward program for your users, either for referring other members or for clicking client banners, hyperlinks and tiles.

  • Add an ‘ask the expert’ section. Make sure to respond promptly.




POSTED ON: 9/1/2001