Electrical Industry Roundtable 2014 - 24

If Murray was to pick up a line, the fi rst thing a manufacturer
would look at is what other lines does he carry? So I see
Amazon like a big distributor that fl exes its muscles, has a
lot of product availability and all of the technical services,
but they are not going to be able to support all of their lines,
manufacturers will need to look to the others to support their
line also. Th at is where the manufacturer may say " my product
doesn't fi t within your model...I'm going to go to the smaller,
locally represented distributor or work with the agencies to
go and promote my brand. I'm going to be more
nimble to be able to adapt to the industry rather
than just having this online service. " Amazon
brings visibil ity to our marketplace-and with
more visibility comes more opportunity.
John Kerr.
SENCICH: Th at's a good point. When you look
at Amazon, I think they can provide the oneoff
purchases; they can provide a small basket
of goods and when somebody knows it's a
simple product they can go online, click on the
product and say " I think that's what I want " and
it's delivered. Th e advantage that the full-line
distributor has is that they can work with the
customer to give them what they really need. Many times what
the customer picks from the Internet site may not address their
needs-or they might pick an entirely wrong product that could
cause a problem in their system, leading to safety concerns and
a variety of other issues.
SYER: Th e disadvantage of Amazon and Home Depot is that
really big companies design processes that are effi cient and
they work well...until you have an exception. Home Depot is
excellent...at being Home Depot. Over time, anyone will be
able to buy anything " technical " over the Internet. Th ere is
no shortage of information and anyone who's been through
a technical education in the last fi ve or ten years is used to
fi nding information online and having questions answered,
probably quicker by internet than by speaking with a human
being. So to think that a distributor is going to be able to assist
in a product decision in a way that the Internet cannot is risky.
Th e technically-savvy buyer will fi nd a way, and the technology
will mature. Getting the delivery the customer needs, in a way
that they want (like project man agement), create exceptions
to streamlined processes that will never be able to be managed
well by a Home Depot or Amazon as they exist today. Th e
diff erentiator will be the cost of acquisition of the product,
24
Canadian Electrical Wholesaler JUNE 2014
www.electricalwholesaler.electricalindusrty.ca
http://www.electricalwholesaler.electricalindusrty.ca
Electrical Industry Roundtable 2014

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