The Industrial Distributor of the Future

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The Industrial Distributor of the Future
HOW QUALITY PRODUCT CONTENT BOOSTS ONLINE SALES

Introduction
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Competing with these new B2C entrants isn’t
just a game of buying the latest and greatest
technology, however.
To compete, it’s important to learn why B2C
companies succeed at selling online in the
B2B space, and to match that experience for
your customers.
With a product master data management
strategy and a content-first approach,
distributors can successfully compete with
B2C companies that have moved into the B2B
industrial distribution space.
It’s no surprise the industrial distribution market has changed over the past several decades.
An industry once dominated by traveling salesmen and catalogs has grown into a global
e-commerce marketplace. Along with this growth comes new and unexpected competition
for B2B industrial distributors: B2C companies like Amazon that draw in customers with easy-to-
use websites, a customer-centric approach, effective browse and search functionalities,
and high-quality product content.

Changes in the Marketplace
1. Customer Demographics
Changes
According to a recent study conducted
by Acquity1 of people who purchase for
businesses, almost 20 percent are under the
age of 35. Even further, 90 percent of buyers
between the ages of 18 and 35 buy products
online. This new generation of buyers is
more likely to shop online than previous
generations.
Not only are buyers under 35 familiar with the
Internet and comfortable buying products
online, they have higher expectations for the
overall online shopping experience. They’re
heavily influenced by B2C websites, such as
Amazon.com, where they’ve spent the last
15 years buying cameras, books, shoes, and
computers. They’ve grown accustomed to
finding products fast and understanding them
quickly—two important factors that drive
them to click the button on a website.
2. Customer Geographic Changes
Industrial distribution is on the path to
becoming a global game. In 2013, general
e-commerce sales saw an 18 percent increase
worldwide2.
Selling products online allows even the
smallest regional distributor to reach
customers all over the world every day. In
a global economy like this, local customers
become global ones who need 24-hour service
and up-to-date, accurate product content
available every second of the day. This type
of reach can lead to exceptional growth in
revenue for distributors selling products
online.
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Including this new B2C competition for distributors, there are five factors that have contributed to changes
in the industrial distribution market.
% of e-commerce sales growth
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Worldwide 2013
Worldwide 2014
US 2014
90% Corporate buyers age 18-35 who purchase online
10% Corporate buyers age 18-35 who purchase offline

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3. Power Change from Manufacturers
to Distributors
In the past, distributors accepted product content
from manufacturers in the format and type preferred
by the manufacturer. As distributors grow business
through mergers and acquisitions and become larger,
they gain more control over the product content
displayed online.
This consolidation of power means distributors have
an opportunity to dictate to manufacturers how much
product content they need, the method in which they
need to receive it, and the format in which they need
it.
Over time, these large distributors have changed
the way manufacturers store and manage product
content to make it flexible and translate to more than
one channel and distributor. As industrial distribution
e-commerce grows, this flexibility also benefits
smaller distributors because they can easily customize
and manipulate their product content.
4. Distributor Technology Changes
Technology not only allows distributors
to manage and sell products online, it lets
distributors make strategic, data-driven
decisions about their websites. Technology
provides distributors with key data about their
customers’ buying patterns and behaviors,
which can be used to improve the e-commerce
shopping experience.
Making decisions based on data has a
meaningful impact on the e-commerce
shopping experience. As opposed to making
decisions based on what’s always been done
in the past, factual data tells distributors what’s
effective about their website and what isn’t—
crucial for making decisions that affect the
bottom line.
A product information management (PIM)
system is one type of software that can provide
you with this key data. Implementing a PIM
system (and linking it to other business systems)
is part of an overall product master data
management strategy. Investing in a PIM system
and linking it to other systems allow distributors
to offer customers a superior e-commerce
shopping experience—one filled with fast
product discovery and easy to use websites.
The industrial
distributor of the
future has more
control over product
content.

5. Competitor Changes
If a company offers similar products at similar
prices to similar customers, then it’s reasonable
to consider that company one of your
competitors. This is less true today because of
this new, unexpected competition from B2C
companies. Distributors must now consider
almost any seller of industrial supplies as
competitors.
When AmazonSupply started receiving
attention in 2012, many industrial
distributors considered it a threat to business.
AmazonSupply carries a much broader
selection of products than most distributors,
and it offers impressive value-added services
like free shipping and returns.
Also, AmazonSupply’s website is very easy
to use. Customers can quickly find and
understand highly complex products without
the help of a knowledgeable salesperson.
This allows AmazonSupply to reach more
customers faster, and, ultimately, increase
revenue. An easy-to-use website is especially
important when it comes to younger
generations of buyers because they’re
experienced online shoppers with higher
expectations for website performance.
The industrial
distributor of the
future uses key
customer data to
make strategic,
data-driven
decisions.
The industrial
distributor of the
future considers
companies from
other markets as
competition.

How You Can Adapt to Changes and Compete with B2C Websites
Take a Content-First Approach
A content-first approach means your website focuses on how customers interact with your products online and how they absorb the information associated with those products.
It’s not enough to simply put your products online and hope customers can find and understand them. You must take active steps to ensure your customers can easily navigate your website, quickly find your products, and easily understand your product data.
As opposed to a design- or technology-first approach, a content-first approach builds trust with your customers.
B2C companies understand this concept well and many take a content-first approach. They make sure customers can quickly find products and easily understand the product data. They make sure key information isn’t missing, inconsistent, or confusing. They know that if a professional buyer can’t quickly find the exact drill bit he needs, or if he feels unsure about whether it’s the right drill bit, there’s a good chance he’ll buy from somewhere else, likely a competitor. Even further, B2C companies understand that a content-first approach is beneficial to nonprofessional buyers as well.
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The growth of e-commerce has made information more visible and transparent. Information is now available online every second of every day. Distributors must change the way they do business to make their own product content visible and transparent to customers.
There are three key areas that distributors must change to keep up with this increase and variety of competition: (1) approach to selling online, (2) customer relationships, and (3) technology.
The industrial distributor of the future takes a content-first approach with clear, accurate, consistent, and complete product content.
A content-first approach not only builds trust with your customers, it also sets the stage for effective use of a PIM system. PIM systems are only useful if they have good product content to manage. When you make the focus on clear, consistent, accurate, and up-to-date product content, PIM systems can be a powerful a tool for managing your quality content.

Relationship-Based Sales
Relationship-based sales are less effective for new generations of online buyers. They still expect good customer service but don’t necessarily require or want a personal relationship with a salesperson.
Because they’ve been buying products online for the last 15 years, they’re highly comfortable shopping online and can easily make independent purchasing decisions. New generations of online buyers want to research and find products on their own, quickly understand product features, and make a swift purchase.
Technical-Expertise-Based Sales
Online tools are becoming more and more effective at driving self-service. These tools, such as searching by keyword and product filtering, allow customers to quickly find the exact product they need without step-by-step help from a salesperson.
Once customers find the right product, content like detailed product data, informative product copy, and clear images give them the confidence to buy.
New generations of online buyers are pressed for time and can’t wait for a perfect solution from a dedicated salesperson. They want clear, detailed, and accurate product content in order to quickly make a purchase and move on to their next task.
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Change Your Tactics
To stay ahead of the increase and variety of competition, it’s tempting to focus on what’s always worked for your organization in the past. However, it’s important to recognize that e-commerce has changed what customers expect out of the buying process.
How You Can Adapt to Changes and Compete with B2C Websites

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To successfully compete with B2C companies online, it’s important to learn why professional buyers like to shop on B2C websites.
What do B2C companies do well? How do they make finding products easy? How do they provide detailed, consistent product content to customers? These fundamentals of a content-first approach are boiled down to three key areas: (1) usability, (2) content, and (3) technology.
How to Match the B2C E-Commerce Shopping Experience
Matching the B2C Experience on Usability
Usability is a measure of how easy a website is to use. Good usability lets customers perform tasks easily. You know your website has good usability when:
»»
Customers can easily find products
»»
Customers can easily differentiate among similar products
»»
Customers who click on a link or perform a search are given results that match their expectations
»»
Customers can easily understand what part of your website they’re on
»»
Customers can easily remember how to use your website during return visits
»»
Customers encounter few or no error messages
»»
Customers don’t feel frustrated when shopping on your website
»»
Customers can easily interact with an online salesperson
»»
Customers can easily manage their accounts on your website
In the context of B2B industrial distribution, good usability is important because the products you sell are often technical and hard to understand.
There are many factors that make for good usability, but there are a few essential elements of usability that B2C companies do very well.

Product Grouping and Organizing
The first element of good usability is easy product discovery. Product discovery refers to how customers find products on your website. When a customer shops for shoes on a B2C website, there are different ways she can discover various types of shoes such as sandals, boots, or sneakers. If she doesn’t know the exact type of shoe she wants, she might click on the shoes product category on the left-side navigation menu. These product categories—and how they’re grouped and organized—are called taxonomy. Taxonomy is just a fancy name for how products are organized.
For her to quickly find the right pair of shoes, the website’s product categories must be well organized. All the sneakers must be grouped together and all the sandals must be grouped together.
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A B2C website that sells shoes. The product categories on the left side are well organized and grouped by distinct shoe types.

A B2B website that sells fasteners. The product categories are grouped with a mixture of different concepts such as material, product type, and application. Where would a buyer click if he were looking for a metric stainless steel machine screw?
It’s no different when a professional buyer shops for fasteners on a B2B distributor’s website.
All the washers must be grouped together and all the screws must be grouped together. A professional buyer is often pressed for time with many other tasks to complete that day besides buying 300 new machine screws. He wants to quickly find the machine screws and correctly understand what type to buy.
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A B2B industrial distribution website. The product categories are grouped by distinct product types that start off broad and get more specific. There are separate categories for assortments and all categories are named clearly.
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There are several important rules for having well-organized product categories on your website:
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Similar products grouped together
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Grouped by product type instead of brand or application
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Separate categories for kits, sets, components, and assortments
»»
Broad at the highest level and specific at the lowest level
»»
Named clearly
The industrial distributor of the future has well- organized product categories that are easy to understand and navigate through.

A B2C website that sells bookshelves. The left-side navigation menu lets customers find products using facets such as color/finish family and material.
Faceted Search
Faceted search is another element of product discovery that makes for good usability. Faceted search lets customers quickly filter through a list of products using facets, which are product attributes and the attributes’ associated values.
Faceted search is also directly related to your product categories. Once a customer has discovered a product category, such as cyanoacrylate adhesives, she is still in the process of product discovery. She still has thousands of products to choose from, and faceted search is a powerful tool that lets her quickly make important decisions without having to click through endless product listings.
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Every product has attributes and values that customers need to know about to choose the right product.
For an adhesive, important attributes are adhesive type, viscosity, and drying time. The values for these attributes are an adhesive type of cyanoacrylate, a viscosity of medium, and a drying time of 20 seconds.
With faceted search, the customer can quickly narrow down a list of products using these key attributes.
A B2B website that sells adhesive tapes. There is no faceted search to help buyers filter through 75 pages of 748 product listings.

To match the B2C experience on usability, let your customers browse through products with faceted search. Once customers have found a product category, such as adhesives, let them further narrow down by adhesive type, viscosity, and drying time. Without faceted search, a professional buyer is left to click through many pages of product listings, which isn’t an efficient use of her time.
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The industrial distributor of the future lets customers browse through products with faceted search.
A B2B website that sells adhesives and sealants. Facets on the left-side navigation menu, such as chemical base, material compatibility, and cure time, let buyers quickly filter through a large product selection.

Images of different screw head types visually help customers understand the design characteristics of each.
Educational Content
Educational content includes images and copy that explain technical concepts, product applications, or differences among product types. This type of content is an important part of product discovery, which happens before a customer views specific SKUs.
Examples of educational content include copy that explains the difference between a screw and a bolt, images that show the difference between screw head types, and copy that explains what screw thread size means. Educational content is presented at key decision points during product discovery to help customers make important choices about the products they’re buying. Images and copy are especially useful for professional buyers unfamiliar with certain products. They can act like a knowledgeable salesperson by helping buyers through the shopping journey of choosing the right product.
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Images are ideal for visually explaining things, such as product measurements or shapes, that would be hard to do with words alone.
Images should be:
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Original
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Clear
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Consistent in design
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Easy to understand

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The industrial distributor of the future has educational, informative images and copy as part of faceted search.
For concepts better described with words, such as product materials or resistance features, copy is ideal.
Copy should be:
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Original
»»
Clear and easy to understand
»»
Informative and educational
»»
Brief but descriptive
»»
Fact-based and objectively written
After viewing images, a professional buyer can quickly decide that a pan head screw is best for her countersinking application. After scanning the copy, she decides she needs a pan head screw made of stainless steel because of its good corrosion resistance. When images and copy work together like this, they become an important tool for fast product discovery.
Copy explaining the characteristics of different materials help buyers choose the right material for their application.

Site Search
Another element of product discovery and usability that B2C companies do well is called site search. Site search can be useful for a customer who knows either the specific or general type of product he wants.
When shopping for shoes online, a customer might already knows he wants red sneakers, so he enters the keyword red sneakers into the search bar. The result he gets is a list of sneakers he can buy. This is an example of site search.
Now consider a different customer enters the keyword red tennis shoes into the search bar on the same website. Effective site search would display the same list of products. This functionality is called tuning. Tuning is important because it ensures the search results match what customers expect to see.
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Important things a well-tuned search engine will take into account are:
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Alternate spellings of products
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Common misspellings of products
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Product abbreviations
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Product synonyms
To match the B2C experience on usability, distributors must have an effectively tuned site search engine that lets a customer quickly find the exact product he needs using the name preferred by him.
For professional buyers, a properly tuned site search engine is very useful because they often use a part number or brand-specific name to search for products. A well-tuned search engine will accommodate these types of searches

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A B2C website that sells women’s sneakers. A good example of a well-tuned search engine, the keywords red sneakers and red tennis shoes present to customers the same number and type of products.

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A B2B website that sells cap screws. Using this cap screw’s UPC number as a keyword presents zero results to the buyer, even though this B2B website does sell this specific cap screw.
A B2B website that sells cap screws. The keywords socket head cap screws and SHCS don’t present the same results to customers, even though these keywords are synonyms.

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The industrial distributor of the future has a well-tuned site search engine that lets customers search for products using their preferred name for a product.
This B2B website has a well-tuned site search engine. The keywords socket head cap screws and SHCS present to customers the same number and type of products.

Another element of site search is called a redirect. A redirect is when a customer enters a keyword into the search bar and is automatically sent to a specific page on the website that you choose.
When a buyer needs to replenish his company’s supply of earplugs, he might enter the term earplugs into the search bar since he knows the exact product he wants.
Instead of displaying a list of earplugs to the customer, you redirect him to the hearing protection category page that displays other products he may be interested in such as earplug dispensers or earplug fit testers. Not only does this present relevant products to the customer, it is a good opportunity to cross-sell other products to him.
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While it’s important to give customers powerful tools for product discovery, once they’ve found a product, they need detailed SKU-level content to feel that what they’ve found meets their needs. Good SKU-level content gives customers the confidence to place an order.
The product page is where all SKU-level content exists and includes product attribute data, product images, and product descriptions. It’s important to have quality content at the SKU level wherever possible.
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Matching the B2C Experience on Content
SKU-Level Attribute Data
SKU-level attribute data is where you get to tell the beginning of a story about your SKUs. To effectively tell this story, your SKUs need clear, consistent, complete, accurate, and up- to-date attribute data.
Attribute data on the product page drives conversion because the product page is where customers are close to making a purchase. Good attribute data assures customers the product they’re looking at is the one they want. If they can’t easily scan and understand the attribute data, there’s a chance they’ll click the button instead of the button.
Good attribute data starts with a complete set of product attributes. Similar to faceted search, customers need to know the defining characteristics of a product in order to understand what they’re buying.
Important attributes for an air conditioner include dimensions, room coverage capability, and number of settings. SKUs that are missing this key data or have confusing data makes customers unsure about whether the air conditioner is right for them.
To match the B2C experience on content, make sure your attribute data is consistent and presented to customers in an easy-to-understand way. One way to ensure this is to normalize your data. To normalize data means to reduce or eliminate inconsistency and redundancy in data.
A B2C website that sells air conditioners. There is a complete set of attributes for this air conditioner, and the attribute data is clear. Attribute names are displayed consistently and the data is easy to understand.

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Example Case
A customer is viewing data on the product page for a spiral point tap. Under the material attribute, HSS is listed. The customer doesn’t understand what HSS means and becomes unsure of whether this spiral point tap is right for him. He goes looking for a different spiral point tap and finds one that has high-speed steel listed as the material.
He determines that HSS and high-speed steel might be the same thing, but he’s confused and not really sure. Since he can’t really be sure if they’re the same thing, he concludes it’s too risky to buy a spiral point tap from this distributor and moves on in search of clearer product data.
»»
How do you display numbers and text?
»»
How do you display units of measure?
»»
How do you display ranges like minimums and maximums?
»»
How do you display dimensions?
»»
How do you display abbreviations or acronyms?
»»
How is product data laid out on your website? In a list? In a block of text?
The industrial distributor of the future has SKUs with complete attributes and clear, consistent, accurate, and up to date data.
This B2B website shows a product page with complete attributes and clear, consistent product data.
Normalized attribute data is useful for things like HSS versus high-speed steel, but it’s also important for more complex attribute data. Questions you can ask to help achieve normalized attribute data are:

Matching the B2C
Experience on Content
SKU-Level Product Images
To match the B2C experience on content,
display clear SKU-level product images
that assure the customer she’s getting
exactly what she’s viewing on your
website.
While faceted search images are often
representative of a concept like screw
thread size, product images lend more
truth to the physical product the customer
will receive.
Product images should show the actual product wherever
possible instead of showing a representative image of the
product range.
In addition to showing the actual product, images should:
»» Be large enough to show product details
»» Have zooming capability
»» Show multiple angles of the product
»» Exclude items not included with the purchase
»» Show the product clearly
»» Be consistent in how the product is displayed
A B2C website that sells sprockets. This product page not only shows clear images, it lets customers
view multiple angles of the product as well as zoom in to see product details.

The industrial distributor of the future has clear SKU- level product images that lets customers zoom in and see multiple product angles.
A B2B website that sells respirators. This product page shows images of multiple products. The buyer can’t be sure which image, if any, shows the respirator she needs.
A B2B website that sells dental instruments. Product images are clear and displayed at a consistent angle and size against a solid white background.
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SKU-Level Product Copy
Two types of SKU-level product copy can help match the B2C experience on content: (1) product titles and (2) product descriptions.
Product titles are important for customers when scanning a list of products. These titles usually include key differentiating details about a product but don’t include everything a customer would want to know. For a camera, a product title might include the camera type, resolution, color, and if it’s a digital camera.
Deciding what information to include in product titles is important, but more importantly, titles should be:
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Free of abbreviations
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Easy to understand and free of complex vocabulary
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Brief and easy to scan
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Named consistently
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Objectively written and free of words such as best, cheapest, or strongest
This is especially true for complex, technical products that distributors sell. If customers can’t easily understand product titles in a list, they are less likely to click on them.
A B2C website that sells cameras. Product titles are clear, easy to understand, and consistent in the type of information displayed: brand, model, number of megapixels, camera type, and color.
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A B2B website that sells bearings. Product titles are hard to understand due to lack of information, inconsistent display of information, and unclear abbreviations.
A B2B website that sells blind rivets. This is a good example of easy-to-read product titles that display consistent information: product type, material, diameter, and head type.
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Writing product descriptions should follow some of the same rules as product titles. Product descriptions should be:
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Original
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Informative
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Brief
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Specific
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Easy to understand
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Written in a consistent voice
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Written with the same amount of information across SKUs
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Fact-based and objectively written
A B2C website that sells cameras. The product description for this camera puts attribute data into context for buyers. It’s informative, educational, and easy to read and understand.
Custom-written product descriptions are important not only for customers but for search engines, too.
Oftentimes, distributors will take product descriptions directly from the manufacturer and display them without editing them. As a result, the same description appears on multiple websites, including your competitors.
Search engines won’t recognize this as unique and original, which can affect how high you rank in search results.
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A B2B website that sells caulking gun accessories. The lack of a clear, detailed product description makes it hard for customers to understand what this adaptor is and how it’s used.
This product description clearly tells customers what the product is and how it works.
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Matching the B2C
Rich Media
Rich media includes things like videos,
technical data sheets, user manuals, and
computer automated design (CAD) images
and drawings.
Rich media turns your product page into
an authoritative destination for research as
well as directs traffic to your website as it
becomes a source for reliable information.
Videos can show product details that are hard to
illustrate with words and static images.
They can show how thick an adhesive is or how
large a particular fastener is, for example.
Videos that show common applications of
products or how to assemble or install products
are also valuable.
A B2B website that sells cameras displays images, videos, and specs for buyers.

Matching the B2C
For professional buyers who are
knowledgeable about the products
they’re buying, technical data sheets
and user manuals put them at ease and
make them feel like they have support
from the distributor.
A B2B website that sells electronic components. Buyers can simply click on the data sheet to view technical specs directly
from the manufacturer.
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Fill Rates
Fill rate means that individual SKUs in a group have data associated with a particular attribute.
If a website sells 100 laptops and all 100 laptops have data for the screen size attribute, then this group of SKUs has a high fill rate of 100 percent—that is, all the attributes are filled with data.
Fill rates are an important part of SKU-level content because they ensure your products aren’t missing important information.
On the other hand, if 75 SKUs are missing data for the size attribute, the group of SKUs has a low fill rate of 25 percent. Customers are unlikely to buy any of these 75 SKUs because there’s missing information for a very important attribute—how big the laptop is.
This kind of problem, when it happens frequently and on a large scale, leads to under-representation of products and, ultimately, lost sales.
Fill rates are not only important for attribute data but are equally important for SKU-level product images and copy. If you sell 250 flap wheels on your website and 200 of those SKUs are missing images or product descriptions, customers are less likely to buy those SKUs. Similar to missing attribute data, missing images and copy also lead to under-representation of products and lost sales.
A B2C website that has 22 laptops for sale. The screen size attribute on the left-side navigation menu shows 22 products with this data available—a high fill rate of 100 percent.
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A B2B website that sells 700 indexable countersinking tools. The angle attribute shows only 584 products with this data available—a low fill rate of 83 percent.
A B2B website that sells 343 plow bolts. The head type attribute shows all 343 products with this data available—a perfect fill rate of 100 percent.
The industrial distributor of the future has high fill rates.
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Matching the B2C Experience on Technology
To match the B2C experience using technology, it’s important that employees can easily import, manipulate, and manage company data. There are a few different types of software that can do this, but one of the most useful tools is a PIM system.
PIM Systems
Some distributors think the cost of investing in technology outweighs the benefits. However, PIM systems can actually save money (and time) for distributors over the years.
PIM systems create a single source of truth for product data, which means there is only one master version of product data stored in only one place. Any secondary location of product data in another system is merely a reference to the master version. If you make changes to data in your PIM system, all secondary locations of that data are also changed.
A master version of product data helps prevent employees from having to update product data by hand, and it helps prevent multiple employees from having to update data in multiple systems. This reduces data errors, ensures data quality, and saves employee-years spent managing data.
Example Case
Consider a large adhesives distributor without a PIM system has acquired two competitors in the past few years. Competitor A and competitor B both had carried a large selection of electronics adhesives.
How will the distributor merge its newly acquired electronics adhesives data with its existing electronics adhesives data?
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This question leads to other important questions:
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Are there duplicate SKUs among the distributor and both competitors? If so, do they have the same data? How much and where?
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How will duplicate SKUs be removed? How will duplicate product data be removed?
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Where and how is product data stored?
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Who manages product data?
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Who updates product data?
Without a PIM system, the distributor now has three distinct inventories: the distributor’s product data, competitor A’s product data, and competitor B’s product data.
Which version is correct? When product data needs updating, which version will be updated? All versions? Just competitor A’s? If only the distributor’s version is updated, are the other versions now inaccurate? Will this lead to customers buying the wrong kind of electronics adhesive?
As is clear, the lack of a PIM system (or a poorly implemented one) can create a rabbit hole of problems. PIM systems are designed to solve these types of problems.
PIM systems can:
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Import, audit, and consolidate data from multiple places
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Store internal- and external-facing product data
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Integrate with other software in business systems
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Feed into other publishing channels like catalogs, mobile, and e-commerce
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Produce automated, customizable reports
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Give role-based access—only certain employees are allowed to make certain data changes
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Linking PIM Systems to ERP and CRM Tools
Once a PIM system creates a single source of truth for your product data, you can link it to other software in your business systems.
This allows you to collect key data about your customers, create relationships between your customers and the products they buy, and draw conclusions about those relationships.
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Customer age, gender, and location
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Customer purchase history
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Information about the company the customer works for
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Line of business
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Number of employees at the company
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Number of departments within the company
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Average order size
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What products customers viewed for comparison before placing an order
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How customers arrive at your website
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How customers search for products
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What products customers buy
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What products are best sellers
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What products need more promotion
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Overstocked products
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Products that have poor conversion rates
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Products with low traffic
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What products are typically purchased together
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Socket wrench and an extension bar
When you link a PIM system to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) system, you can collect information about:
This key customer information allows you to draw conclusions about:
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Customer buying behaviors and patterns
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What products to target to what customers
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If targeted promotions and sales are effective at driving revenue
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Example Case
Consider a distributor that sells a variety of bearings to beverage processing plants. The distributor uses a PIM system to manage its master product data and has linked the PIM system to ERP and CRM tools.
By checking the PIM system, the distributor sees that 85 percent of its customers use a new stainless steel ball bearing the distributor had introduced two years earlier. The other 15 percent use an older bearing that is outdated.
By checking the CRM tool, the distributor learns that of the 15 percent of customers using the older bearing, eight percent haven’t bought anything from the distributor in the past five years.
This key piece of information tells the distributor that seven percent of its customers using the outdated bearing are still active customers.
A salesperson quickly sets up calls with these customers to sell the new bearing on the market and investigates the other eight percent to see why they are inactive with the distributor.
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Are your product categories still well organized?
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Do they reflect new products you’ve recently introduced?
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Do your SKUs still have a complete set of attributes?
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Do they accommodate new attribute values like a new drill bit material of 301 stainless steel?
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Do your SKUs still have high fill rates?
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Do any images or copy need updating?
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Are any images or copy missing?
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Are they still displayed consistently?
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Are they still accurate?
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How is your site search functionality performing?
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Do search results match what customers expect to see?
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Have other competitors emerged that require you to re-evaluate your website?
Important questions you can ask to ensure product content is maintained are:
To ensure your website is regularly maintained, integrate a maintenance process into your overall strategic planning process.
To integrate a maintenance process, important questions include:
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How often will you update your website?
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Which areas of the website will be updated?
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Who will update it?
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What are your company’s goals for updating product content?
Ongoing Website Maintenance
Since you will invest effort in creating an exceptional e-commerce experience that matches the B2C experience, invest an equal amount of effort in maintaining and refreshing this experience for your customers.
Expect to update your website every two to three years using data about your website’s usability, product content, technology, and customer buying patterns. This type of data will tell you how customers browse for products, how easily they can find your products, and what leads them to abandon your website. Using this data allows you to make strategic decisions that are essential to a successful e-commerce site.
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World-class product content is also beneficial to your sales team. Effective salespeople interact with as many customers as possible. When armed with product expertise, they can offer additional service to your customers.
Telepresence is one example of how your sales team can offer additional service to customers. Telepresence allows your salespeople to communicate with customers at a distance and add products to customers’ carts on their behalf. This lets you quickly serve customers in hard-to-reach locations at a lower cost.
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How Product Content Affects Your Sales Team
Effective salespeople also understand their customers’ needs and wants. When salespeople have access to important data about customer behavior, they can help grow business. World- class product content can give them key information about what product lines to expand, what products are not selling well, and what new products to introduce to customers.
World-class product content also helps increase sales from your long-tail customers. Long-tail customers are those that don’t spend a lot of money with distributors but have the potential to grow. They might be start- up companies or small, local companies with few employees. They are in the process of forming a brand preference, so it’s important they can rely on you to help them find and understand products.
An effective e-commerce website with world-class product content helps you reach these customers at a lower cost. With good product content, you can build trust with long-tail customers over time. When they become larger with bigger budgets, they’re likely to spend that budget with you because they trust you and have been buying online from you for a long time.

In conclusion, a content-first approach creates a customer-centric e-commerce experience. A content- first, customer-centric approach drives online sales because it always focuses on who the customers are and what products they buy.
Product content such as product category organization, faceted search, accurate data, clear images, and informative copy are essential aspects of a customer-centric, content-first approach.
Combined with technology, a content-first approach increases overall traffic, drives conversion, and increases your revenue. With a single source of truth for product content, the industrial distributor of the future can successfully compete with B2C (and B2B) websites with a content-first approach.
In Conclusion
1The Acquity Group 2013 State of B2B Procurement Study
2http://www.baynote.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/040314_Baynote_WorldAccordingToEcommerce_FINAL.lh_. png
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For additional information about Codifyd, please contact
your Codifyd sales consultant.
Email us at sales@codifyd.com or visit codifyd.com

The Industrial Distributor of the Future

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