Guest post by Matthew Osborn, Senior Marketing Manager at Apruve. Read his writing on the Apruve blog here.The new generation of B2B buyers wants the ability to make purchases whenever and wherever they want without having to hunt down a print catalog or pick up the phone.In fact, 93%...
Many of your customers will be using Google to search for your physical branch locations. In fact, when looking at most Distributors website analytics (like Google Analytics or PIWIK), the locations pages are often some of the most requested pages on your site! With that in...
I sat down to talk with Cris Young of Hudson Fasteners/1 Industrial Way. The Executive Vice President of this Ohio-based fastener distribution company, we talked about her digital-focused approach to doing business. The following is an excerpt of that conversation:Justin: I’d just love to hear a...
I'm excited to share this recent conversation with tED Magazine. It's a bit different: I address using branding as a strategy to compete with Amazon. In this article, I go through how the brain builds brand affinity and links. And how distributors can use this powerful pathway...
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_column_text] I wanted to share a brand new video that we created for our member site, the DigitalBranch. It's all about getting the ball rolling on understanding customer experience. This video walks through user personas - what they are,...
One of the things you've heard me say over and over, is how important it is to design a website that is customer-centric. While technology challenges will take the most effort and labor, it all needs to be in the service of providing your customers exceptional...
Avnet is the leading electronics distribution company, with $26.2 billion on revenue – according to Modern Distribution Management.In Spring 2017, they redesigned their website to reflect their new branding – “reach forward” – and to speak to a younger audience. In this article, we review...
In May 2017, Grainger soft-launched a new site called Gamut.com. The site is radically different than the parent site Grainger.com - with a product-focused design. In January 2018, on Grainger's Q4 2017 Earnings Call, CEO D. G. Macpherson said: In 2017, we also launched a new R&D...
In this two-part article, we are taking a look at how HD Supply, one of the leading distributors of industrial supplies in North America, is tackling the challenge of incorporating several industry-specific eCommerce sites under one roof. Part One explored features of the Facilities Maintenance branch...
HD Supply is one of the leading distributors of industrial supplies in North America. With a projected 1.16B in sales for Q1 2018, and over 60% of sales online (from 2016 reporting), HD Supply is a key distributor to look at as a digital leader. “HD Supply...
I had the opportunity to talk more with tED Magazine, to get into the heart of building your eCommerce business. In this article, I speak on how to build a content optimization strategy. It starts with the people: getting the knowledge and perspective from your...
I had the pleasure with talking to tED Magazine about the challenges and opportunities in B2B ecommerce. Here's an excerpt from that article: As business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce grows, the need for effective SEO has become that much more important. After all, there are just 12 ranked...
In this conversation with tED Magazine, we discuss investing in the Digital Branch. How to approach it strategically and for maximum impact....
Amazon is building product data – sucking in tons of manufacturer data and building their own....
I had the pleasure of chatting again with tEDMagazine on the importance of investing now in improving your competitive advantages. So far, Amazon’s impact on electrical distribution has been largely anecdotal—with one or two customers or bids lost to the online giant here and there—but what...
In May 2017, we covered the MSC Directs new homepage changes. Looking today, they’ve made some more changes in design, placement and functionality.MSC continues to iterate on their homepage – in some ways getting more and more simple, in some ways getting more complex. Here’s...
UK eCommerce expert Chloe Thomas has launched her first B2B-focused book. Targeted to manufacturers and distributors, the book walks through four stages to eCommerce success:
This ad recently showed up in my Facebook feed. It’s an advertisement for Grainger – which is why it displays as a “Sponsored” post. There are a lot of things that this ad does right, and we want to break down exactly how:What this ad...
I had a chance to talk to tED Magazine about the challenges Amazon poses to independent distributors with their new Amazon Business Prime Shipping (launched November 2017).Here's an excerpt: This is the biggest and scariest announcement we've seen from Amazon in the last several years and...
In the past couple of months, Motion Industries has made some big design changes to their website. We’ll look at two key areas that reflect these developments. The Homepage The biggest change on the homepage is a clearer focus on product selling. This is achieved in a few ways:...