The ultimate bricks and mortar companies — hard core manufacturers — are finding their way to cyberspace.
Not only are they establishing their own Web presence, but they are taking full advantage of what the sites have to offer for themselves and their customers.
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Neil Runzel is the director of communications for Electric Boat Corporation, the Groton-Connecticut-based manufacturer of submarines. He said the biggest advantage to having an online presence is the time it saves.
“There are a myriad of forms and information to fill out for people who want to sell or do business with defense contractors,” he said. “All of that has been put online, which has dramatically streamlined the process.”
John Lombardi, Internet marketing specialist for A.T. Cross, and webmaster for Cross.com, said the biggest advantage for the Lincoln-based pen manufacturing company has been selling directly to consumers, limiting distributors’ costs.
“There is obviously a great profit margin for it,” he said. “We’re selling (the product) for full retail.”
Larry Liebenow, president of Fall River, Massachusetts-based Quaker Fabric, said on his company’s Web site, business to business will be the most important aspect of Quaker’s Internet presence. The company is building the required internal information infrastructure to move into the business to business market.
“As distribution systems and technology improves and the consumer becomes more comfortable with e-commerce, there will be opportunities to reach consumers in a way to tailor to what they specifically want,” said Liebenow.
“B2B (business to business) will allow us to respond to what is happening much more quickly and we will have far more accurate forecasting as a result.”
Dealing directly with consumers wasn’t as easy as it sounds for Cross.
“This was our first venture into selling a product direct,” said Lombardi. “We had only ever sold through retailers and distributors and there were a lot of channel conflicts we had to cool in various ways.”
Lombardi said Cross made many efforts to appease angry retailers, such as selling its products on Cross.com at full-price, whereas retailers could mark their prices down. Cross also includes an online database of all retailers who carry its products, which a viewer can search by zip code.
He said all of Cross’s efforts are to promote the brand name, and that retailers should not be concerned.
“They should have seen this coming,” he said. “We were in a position where Cross wasn’t doing so great for a while, and we had taken the steps to elevate our brand, and now we’re taking the initiative to add new products and do retailer exclusives to target a wider audience.”
Lombardi said it is likely the customers will get a better price with the retailers, but the option of buying directly from Cross is available for the customer. And it seems many customers have decided to do just that. According to Lombardi, Cross made as much money in December 2000 as in the entire year of 1999.
Runzel said the Internet has helped Electric Boat in recruiting. The company posts job listings, and job applicants can fill out their information online. The Web site, located at gdeb.com, is also a place of interest for collectors.
“There are submarine aficionados all across the world looking for memorabilia and photos of submarines, so it now allows people to make contact with the company store and use charge cards to buy things.”
While the Internet has improved Electric Boat’s efficiency greatly and its business slightly, Renzel did not expect the medium to become a lifeline.
“We haven’t become L.L. Bean or Land’s End, but it’s an efficient way of doing business,” he said, “and it probably has bumped up the business a bit and saved a lot of phone calls.”
