Some Saelig Secrets ...

1. Find Unique, Useful and Quality Products. An electronic components distributor’s ultimate goal is to serve the needs of the electronics engineer. Finding that “killer” new product takes constant global market research. Making sure a product is suitable for the domestic marketplace (power supplies, correct broadcast frequencies, etc.) is essential. To effectively do this, a distributor must be willing to continuously evaluate new supplier opportunities, with the goal of finding products that are useful, easy to ship, and which require minimal technical support. Products also need to be high quality, competitively priced, and have features which may be presently unavailable in the local marketplace. A careful, upfront and “hands-on” evaluation is recommended for products. This “due diligence” also helps distributors filter out hard-to-use products, or ones with inadequate documentation, while adequately training technical staff to answer support questions. An analysis of competing product features and pricing are also essential. Monitoring product performance and customer satisfaction is also critical. Returns and field failures should trigger reassessment of the business case for relevant products.
2. Procure Quality Supplier Partners. Finding trustworthy, reliable suppliers can be a challenge, especially since a typical electronics component distributor cannot usually visit each supplier before business decisions are made. A consistent, comprehensive evaluation process can help determine whether a supplier is a good fit for the distributor. Supplier partnerships need to be both mutually beneficial and trustworthy. For example, upon signing exclusive North American agreements, suppliers would be expected to forward relevant inquiries and sales opportunities within agreed upon sales territories to the distributor, instead of attempting to sell direct. Standing behind products when quality and reliability issues arise is another important aspect of partnership.
3. Recruit and Maintain Good People/Facilities. Choosing the right distributor supporting team is also essential to presenting efficient, honest, knowledgeable service for customers and suppliers, as is having a well-maintained office infrastructure and properly networked equipment. Providing employees with a secure opportunity to earn a livelihood, with flexibility to pursue personal growth needs, must be balanced with consideration and accommodation to employees for individual family or other personal needs as they arise. Successful distributors treat both customers and employees with the same level of care and consideration.
4. Effectively Position Products to Customers. Having already identified the ideal target end customer, finding correct venues for product placement and publicity are critical. Advertising and press release distribution are essential, and require constant awareness of an evolving print and online media world. Securing commitments from overseas suppliers to invest in such activities can be challenging, as suppliers frequently perceive a distributor’s responsibility to include shouldering such Marketing costs. That is tough to do on small margins, further eroded by credit card fees, shipping and duty payments and stock costs. Because of the North American market size, domestic distributors may be unable to visit most customers personally. Instead, they must be able to sell products via strong technical support, ease of ordering and shipment, good marketing, and good web support. It’s also important for distributors to have and exercise effective customer-retention strategies, and to keep suppliers, customers and other partners informed about the latest product developments.
5. Enter into Mutually Beneficial and Protective Distribution Agreements. It is essential for distributors to have in place signed supplier agreements, not just to protect business and legal interests, but also to clearly set forth responsibilities and expectations of both parties. It is also vital to include a clearly communicated termination clause within each agreement. Having the ability at the time of termination to return remaining stock for reimbursement can be a life-saver!
6. Manage Cash Flow and Finances. International currency fluctuations present a host of issues. Many goods are purchased with advanced payment in a given foreign currency, and the time between issuing a formal price quote and subsequent receipt of customer funds to pay for the goods can be up to three months, during which time, there may be a variation between paid price and received funds. Credit card fraud is another factor - sound judgment is especially needed when deciding whether to fill an overseas order. In addition, credit card “discount” fees can be 2 to 6.5% of total sale value, depending on card type, so a revenue reduction of up to 6.5% must be considered when pricing products. Another challenge is keeping pace with price changes from hundreds of suppliers, and to keep online webshop and internal accounting software prices current. Cash flow can also be a problem. Customers often pay Net 30 invoices late, requiring companies to chase payment. Yet the distributor is expected to buy on Net 30 terms and pay promptly, setting up a real cashflow deficiency scenario. Increasing business revenue therefore needs increasing cash to sustain, possibly requiring a bank loan.

IMS2009

It was good to be able to meet with our Swiss supplier AnaPico on their stand at this year's Microwave Conference in Boston last Monday. They were among 550 RF vendors demonstrating the latest in RF and wireless technology. AnaPico's Apsin3000 (9kHz- 3GHz) and Apsin6000 (9kHz - 6Ghz) low phase noise battery-powered portable RF signal generators created quite an interest, especially since the output can go down to -140dBm, excellent for testing receiver sensitivity.

And the seafood was excellent too!

Blog Advantages

One advantage for readers of this blog is advanced notice of upcoming events and happenings at Saelig. For instance, today we signed an agreement to become Industrial Interface (UK)'s USA distributors. Their products will get onto our website soon (our site is undergoing a major revision at the moment - keep watching!) and press releases will go out too, but for a heads-up of the neat high-quality, innovative DINrail-mounting signal conditioners, isolators and controllers, ZigBee wireless systems and sensors, Ethernet I/O modules with built-in web-browser, surge and lightning protectors, see http://www.industrialinterface.co.uk/index.htm. Call us for details if you need something from their product line in a hurry ...

Moving Customer Feedback

It's great when we hear good things about the products we bring to America. Even better when the customers who like them go to great lengths to tell others about their finds. Today, one of our customers let us know that he'd made a special YouTube video of how to use the Owon PDS5022S oscilloscope we sell, with a nice recommendation for Saelig at the end. Take a look:

http://www.afrotechmods.com/groovy/oscilloscope_tutorial/oscilloscope_tutorial.htm

Unrelated benefits

Dave Wilson, Editor of ElectronicsTalk (UK - www.electronicstalk.com) wrote an article about using unrelated events for marketing purposes:

"A UK Managing Director was unhappy about the recent slowdown in sales at his company, so he decided to do something rather radical about it. As an avid TV viewer, he had recently become aware of the phenomenal success of the Scottish singer Susan Boyle on a British talent show. He heard that after appearing on the show, her video on Youtube had been viewed over one hundred million times. In fact, her career from a church volunteer to a worldwide superstar appeared to be going from strength to strength. She was an internet sensation and the Managing Director decided to take advantage of the fact.

So, days after the show aired, he sat down at his trusty PC and wrote his own blog comments about the performance.

The result was that Internet traffic to the site of the electronics manufacturer is now booming. Of course, not everyone is looking to buy some of his products, but some of them are.

All thanks and praise then to Susan Boyle, Britain's Got Talent, and welcome to the brave new world of the Internet.

I don't know about you, but I can feel a song coming on....

But wait - there's more!

Our suppliers often have additional products that we haven't had the opportunity to make available to our customer base, but one came across my path that I thought was worth importing. With the switch to digital TV upon us, I have searched long and hard for a reasonably-priced small TV for my kitchen, where there is no cable outlet. One that I could also take with me on trips. I found one of our Far East suppliers had exactly that; and no-one else here seems to have anything as good economically. AT-70T is a 7" portable LCD Digital TV (yes - digital!) that gives me (and now you) the ability to enjoy my favorite television programs anywhere, anytime - home or away - great for my kitchen where there's no cable access (or - sshhh - on my desk at work!) This handy little portable TV has a bright 7-inch LCD screen with a built-in ATSC/NTSC tuner with detachable antenna, giving crisp reception of publically-broadcast digital and analog channels – so it's fine either before and after the digital-to-analog switch in June 2009. It features a built-in twin speaker system - or I can plug my headphones into the audio jack and watch news or sports without disturbing those around me. The rechargeable Li-polymer battery offers up to 2.5-hours of life between charges -- enough time to watch an entire movie or several episodes of a favorite show without a recharge. It includes an AC power adapter, a car adapter and a remote control. Only $129.00 More at www.saelig.com

ESC 2009 San Jose

It was good to meet many existing and new customers on the WIZnet stand at ESC 2009 in San Jose last week. We also assisted on Byte Paradigm’s stand (another of our suppliers). Lots of people took advantage of our freshly minted “$100” gifts – we gave out mints wrapped in miniature $100 bill wrappers – part of our stimulus package! Let me know if you’d like one sent to you!

As WIZnet’s USA distributor, we provide our customers with excellent pre- and post-sales support for their hard-wired TCP/IP ICs, but for all the ESC passers-by who did not have network needs, we handed our brochure describing all of the other unique products we sell, ranging from test equipment, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and components. All of our offerings have to pass our rigorous criteria filters to enter our portfolio – and WIZnet products certainly meet our standards!

WIZnet is a unique, fully hard-wired Internet connectivity solution provider. WIZnet core technology – TCP/IP Offload (TOP) – is a market-proven, stable IC , in use by leading companies around the world. It suits applications with low-cost microcontrollers, where you want to eliminate any connectivity headaches, while offering optimum network performance. You can even network-enable OS-less devices!