Use FCH to Market Fastener Inventory & Promote Your Fastener Business Online
07/23/2009 12:51 PM CDT
If you do business in the fastener industry in the 21st century, then you should be using the Internet to drive your business. It’s just that simple.
This is even more true as economic conditions cause resellers in every market area to search for better ways to attract new customers and to increase their overall visibility, all with a watchful eye on the bottom line.
Since it was launched over two years ago, FastenersClearingHouse.com (FCH) has become a regular destination for thousands of fastener distributors and industrial buyers in search of hard to locate fastener inventory. Visits to the search engine website have grown every month, and June 2009 saw an increase in inventory searches of nearly 24%, despite mixed economic headlines.
If you haven’t been using FCH (http://www.fastenersclearinghouse.com), then you’ve overlooked the largest industrial fastener database on the Web.
The website is free to use as a searching and sourcing channel, and it features almost 350 thousand line items from over 150 North American distributors who list their inventory, as of this writing. Searches are commodity based, and the database includes thousands of parts indexed by part number, mil-spec number, and brand name.
“When we first entered the market, we had the challenge of introducing ourselves and letting the industry know we are here to stay,” said Eric Dudas, FCH operations manager. “Lately, the majority of calls we make are to distributors who already know us and use our service. We’re explaining our value proposition, showing them how simple and cost-effective it is to become a part of the community. And we’re showing them that the benefits go way beyond just selling excess inventory.”
FCH members are able to list up to 10 thousand line items on the website, and to update their inventory listings any time using a secure web page. The process of uploading inventory is fast and easy.
The most common method is to upload a spreadsheet that is then run through FCH’s proprietary “scrubber” software, rendering easy to search listings. The heavy lifting all happens behind the scenes. New members frequently remark with surprise at how quickly their list of shorthand and abbreviated inventory can be converted and added to the search engine database, where it can be seen by thousands of potential buyers, 24/7.
In many cases, making a few extra sales or winning a new customer is simply a matter of getting the word to the right person at the right time. As a virtual crossroads for the industry, FCH can be an extremely effective way to achieve this. Buyers come to the website when they can’t find what they need elsewhere, typically when their usual supplier cannot deliver or when an import needed for a fast turnaround comes in short.
This underscores the idea that inventory sitting in your warehouse that you consider to be “slow moving” might be considered “hard to find” by someone trying to locate it.
“During a very slow time of year and since we uploaded our list about two weeks ago, we’ve had five inquiries and we just finished shipping the second order. These were overstock items that would have been difficult to sell otherwise, and one of the customers was new to us,” said FCH member George Carson, of Anchor Bolt & Screw, Naperville, Illinois.
Even as distributors have come to recognize FCH as a valuable sales channel, others are leveraging the website to funnel fully qualified leads to their sales teams using the SourceFinder system.
Here’s how SourceFinder works: When a user searches for a specific item using the FCH search engine and there are no matching items in the database, they are offered the chance to send a real-time request to all participating FCH members. This routes a SourceFinder inquiry to all participating members based on their profile settings, and they are free to respond or not based on their interest in the inquiry. It’s an optional system available to all FCH members at no additional charge.
“Some members use SourceFinder to their great advantage,” Dudas said. “We’ve seen numerous four and five figure sales occur as a result of the system. We have a handful of members who joined simply for that part of the service. Thinking about it their way, who wouldn’t want a steady stream of fully qualified leads coming in all the time? Others have no interest in it whatsoever and have disabled the system on their account. We deliver value to our various members in different ways, and it’s their call.”
This leads to yet another feature of FCH membership. Every participant receives complimentary banner advertising along with a link to their company website. Members’ banner ads randomly rotate across the FCH site, and this provides a tremendous and often under-recognized benefit for FCH members.
Those who have spent time and money attempting to attract the attention of search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo know the process is not cheap and for the easily discouraged. The fact is that quality inbound links, such as those provided with FCH membership, are vital to building serious traffic to your website, and they also build credibility with the major Internet directories.
“My sales team relies on FCH to make sales all the time, but I was really impressed when I found my own site through FCH while doing a Google search!” commented Joe Truckey, of Cal Fasteners, Anaheim, California.
Companies that are successful in positioning themselves with the search engines are spending thousands of dollars a year to achieve their rankings, in many cases. FCH includes a quality inbound link as part of membership at no additional charge.
FCH provides a full range of benefits for fastener distributors, and offers it all for a price less than the cost of a small ad in a trade magazine. The site has enjoyed success and continues to expand as a result. Yet some companies have refrained from joining because the site is accessible to users outside the fastener industry.
The fact is that there is a wide mix of vendors, each with its individual business model and many that do business with other fastener distributors only. A quick search for a common fastener item on the website provides a fast survey of members to demonstrate this. FCH supports distributor to distributor sales in several ways, with a restricted “distributors-only” section, and by making pricing information optional. Further, it is the site’s expressed policy that members do business only with whom they choose and at their own discretion.
Ask any FCH member who has used the service successfully to make extra sales and promote their company, and discover how well it will work for your company.
About FastenersClearingHouse.com:
FCH is an independent search engine serving the industrial and commercial fastener industry by providing a place to buy and sell surplus, hard to find, and odd lot fastener inventory on the Internet. Founded in October, 2006, FCH is based in Naperville, Illinois. www.fastenersclearinghouse.com
