Industrial supplies buyers want you to be online

Your website might be more important than your sales rep.

The 2014 UPS B2B Buyers Insight Study looked at what drives the decisions of industrial supplies buyers.  The survey asked respondents to rate attributes with to deciding from which industrial supplies vendor they should purchase. 

78% percent of respondents rated product information on the supplier website as “extremely important” or “very important.”  74% percent of respondents rated the ability to make purchases on the supplier’s website as “extremely important” or “very important.”  In contrast, 58% of respondents rated having a sales representative as “extremely important” or “very important.”  54% of respondents rated having a hardcopy product catalog as “extremely important” or “very important.”

Industrial supplies companies need to have a strong online presence to grow their business. As stated in the study:

“Given buyers’ high satisfaction levels with supplier performance on key selection criteria, and considering that web-based research is most preferred, it’s reasonable to infer that many buyers consider online research essential to their supplier selection process.  The use of search engines means that suppliers may be at greater risk of losing share to companies whose products are perhaps easier to find, in stock or competitively priced.  On the other hand, suppliers whose products are easy to find online and meet buyers’ criteria may also stand to gain customers.”