I attended Digital Commerce 360’s EnvisionB2B conference over June 20-22 in downtown Chicago, which featured a wealth of educational sessions on eCommerce, marketplaces and other digital sales and marketing topics for both distributors and manufacturers.

One session I found particularly interesting was a panel discussion titled, “Sharing Digital Data – Manufacturer/Distributor Collaboration” which discussed how those two parties and other channel partners collaborate online.

The panel featured the following executives:

• Dan Banks, a B2B consultant to helps distributors and technology vendors “bridge the technology gap” between the two as Founder of Domani Strategies, who moderated the discussion.
• Mike Powers, Director of eCommerce & Digital at Anchorage, Alaska-based hose and rubber products distributor ARG Industrial.
• Jordan Nussbaum, Chief Information Officer at Midland Industries — a manufacturer and master distributor of fittings, pneumatics, hydraulics and accessories via a family of brands.
• Joe Thomas, Sr. Associate Product Manager – Catalog MDM at Genuine Parts Company, a major distributor of automotive and industrial parts under its NAPA Auto Parts and Motion Industries subsidiaries.

This aforementioned collaboration often involves sharing digital product data to increase the accuracy and effectiveness of product displays; upgrading the customer experience; fostering online commerce; and enhancing branded images.

This data sharing is often hard to come by in the greater distributor-manufacturer, as both sides understand how the other could benefit from sharing product data with them, but also don’t want to give everything away. My mid-May MDM Podcast with Consight Marketing’s Alan Hale emphasized how a perceived data-sharing stubbornness in that relationship keeps both sides from achieving additional sales volume and margin growth as distributors and manufacturers would rather safeguard their data and play it close to the vest.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t good examples of distributor-manufacturer data-sharing. The EnvisionB2B panel provided exactly that. Here, I want to recap some key takeaways from Powers’ commentary, since it was the most directly relevant for MDM’s readership.

Getting Rid of Bad Data

Powers touched on how ARG began its journey to launch an eCommerce website in 2020, and it began with overhauling the ‘bad’ product data that existed in the distributor’s ERP system — most of which was descriptions and information that was manually keyed in by a lot of different staff. In some cases, that bad data caused returns and issues with end users because it was incorrect.

“As we were launching a new eCommerce platform, we realized the taxonomy and attribute filters that were going to be on the website had to meet the needs of different users, including search and how they buy product,” Powers explained. “It was imperative for us to align with our suppliers and manufacturers.”

Midland Industries is one of those ARG suppliers.

Powers acknowledged that ARG Industrial doesn’t have anyone on staff who is a taxonomist or knows how to get, say, 15-26 product specification fields — something I’m sure the vast majority of small-to-medium-sized distributors can identify with. So, it was crucial for ARG to find a technology partner that would allow it to have a product information management system (PIM) and enable that PIM to be introduced to the company’s manufacturing partners.

eCommerce = Digital Catalog

Powers said he thinks manufacturers are just now realizing they have to develop a data strategy after a prolonged period where they would simply produce a print catalog that, in most cases, would end at the salesperson’s desk and they would bring it to the end user.

“Now, our website is a digital catalog,” Powers said. “We have customers that may use it, take pictures, text, call in orders. At the end of the day, we need that product data to come all the way through. In working with Midland and some of our other key suppliers and sharing the format and system we have, we’re finding synergies between their system and ours to get that data.”

With the amount of work involved, getting an eCommerce website launched and hoping customers like and utilize it isn’t fruitful. Doing the necessary voice of customer research helps distributors know what features to prioritize and ensure that the new buying platform will pay off. And that continues post-launch. Powers said ARG Industrial continuously surveys its customers to gather feedback on what can be improved. When it comes to that voice of customer research, he advises not to overthink it.

“It doesn’t have to be very complex. If you have SurveyMonkey, Constant Contact or one of these other survey platforms out there, do it,” Powers said. “You get so much great feedback. That feedback has helped us develop quick-order pads. We realized that competitor part numbers or cross-reference guides are super important for search, as is the ability to find that information easily.”

Powers added that providing the ability to search by market segment title and giving customers that information is likewise vital.

Banks noted that the product taxonomy that most ERP systems offer is built for operations, not for customers. He asked Nussbaum how Midland is leveraging technology or tech partners on the taxonomy front. Nussbaum explained that his company’s print catalog includes more than 300 parts that don’t exist in Midland’s ERP system. Previously, that meant Midland had no way of identifying those parts. He said it was Powers that led Midland to engage with its PIM provider to examine how Midland was ingesting data and then presenting it to customers, which he called an invaluable process.

Finding Help and Sharing Costs

Many of MDM’s technology-oriented webcasts emphasize that “you don’t have to do it alone” when it comes to adopting tools and processes — whether internal or customer-facing — but it bears frequent repeating. The majority of SMB distributors don’t have the staffing resources to implement the taxonomy and general product information management required to provide customers with the buying experience they expect today. MDM’s latest whitepaper details our research on that fact. Thankfully, there are plenty of vendors who have deep distribution industry experience that can take on the heavy lifting for these projects. 

But that’s not the only option out there. Combining forces with fellow distributors can also be a viable path, as it was for ARG.

Powers detailed how in 2020, ARG partnered with two other distributors on an eCommerce journey, sharing the cost and investment to enrich around 50,000 SKUs and the taxonomy for them. Together, they developed a hose & fitting taxonomy. The first area they went after was the shared suppliers those three distributors had. Midland was such a supplier that all three partnering distributors represented. 

All three distributors are also part of the same buying group, IDCO, in which Powers noted many distributors still haven’t implemented eCommerce, but have voiced that they have bad product data. He added there are use cases of distributors getting Midland industry product data and importing it into their ERP. Or, they have a sales rep tool that puts product images, descriptions or tear sheets all in one place for reps to have on-hand so that they’re not running out to their car to come up with a quote.

“That product data is right there for them,” Powers said. “And that’s without eCommerce.”

As a result of the distributor trio’s collaboration with Midland, they now have an industry PIM that Midland and a bunch of other suppliers are pushing product data to. Other distributors are now leveraging the product data for print catalogs, sales tools or for their ERP.

“It’s opening their eyes to things like decreasing returns and the ability of sales reps to grow average order size because now he’s selling 55 to 60 items every visit instead of 16,” Powers said.

Looking at the big picture, Powers said the democratized exposure to product data is spurring more distributors to pursue the journey to eCommerce.

Where to Get Started

As with any technology or data initiative, distributors want to know what the first step is on that path. Powers said that as more manufacturers learn about what fellow industry distributors have done on the PIM front, it’s led to inquiries from manufacturers asking how they can get involved with ARG once they’ve found out the company is ahead of them on the organic search front.

“‘How do we do that? You’re telling me we can push data to one source to go to all registered or authorized dealers?’ Absolutely,” Powers recounted.

He elaborated that for ARG, the journey is all about the buyer, and it’s no secret that having the right products in stock at a good price with rich data is the cocktail recipe. He gave the example of an engineering firm customer in Montreal that ordered earth anchors out of ARG’s Anchorage warehouse and shipped them to Key West, Florida — 5,100 miles apart.

“The freight was unbelievable,” he acknowledged, ‘but the buyer said it was something they needed. They saw the quantity, the pricing, the freight cost. They knew when it was going to get there, and it fit their needs. The product information for that was really important.”

Ongoing Product Data Maintenance

Having rich product data isn’t a one-time project that becomes hands-off after implementation. To maintain that data quality and its constant flow, ARG has a digital product specialist whose primary responsibility is to manage relationships with suppliers and watch that its PIM has the right taxonomy rules in place at all times. This ensures when Nussbaum uploads new product data from Midland on Friday, the specialist can log into the PIM first thing Monday morning, refresh it and see within seconds that it displays properly. Accompanying that specialist is a data analyst who measures the analytics involved with that process.

Benefits Beyond the Shopping Cart

Powers emphasized that enriching product data won’t be a 100% translation to improved eCommerce sales, but the benefits go far beyond it. He provided the example of one of ARG’s customers at which someone consistently logs into the ARG web store approximately 400 times per month, yet has never placed a single order through its shopping cart. But when looking at the ERP front-end analysis of part numbers that this customer has never purchased before, ARG is in the 60-70% range of new revenue from new products. ARG then reached out to this customer to ask how they like the web store experience, expecting them to say they hate it. It was the complete opposite.

“He said, ‘I love it. It’s amazing. Our company just has a procurement system where we’re supposed to place all orders through,’” Powers recounted.

That example brings up another question of how distributors can integrate procurement systems, which could be done with a punch-out catalog, but that’s another discussion.

“Regardless, not all of the benefit of this journey is going to happen through your shopping cart,” Powers said. “Whether at our front counters or from a snippet of a product detail page taken and sent via email — you’re able to see it’s impacting the business.”