Any discussion about the future of distribution inevitably focuses on digital channels – how to drive more traffic to them and how to convert that traffic into online sales. However, while the amount and value of online purchases are increasing sharply – online sales are set to reach $8.1 trillion by 2026, around 56 percent more than the total in 2021 – most B2B customers are still looking for at least an element of in-person interaction during their buying journey, particularly when it comes to large or complex projects.
For this reason, ABB’s sales team in Turkey has been focusing on helping distributors to develop an effective omnichannel approach to sales, by integrating our inventory locator application eFinder into their sales processes, both online and offline.
After the integration, distributors are not only receiving more online orders, which are significantly larger than their usual orders, but they are also seeing an increase in the number of customers placing orders via their offline channels after initially finding ABB’s products online.
Our strategy
ABB’s eFinder is an inventory locator system designed to help customers find out where to buy our Electrification products from authorized distributors in their region and make it easier for those customers to search live stock availability and buy.
The simplest step for the team in Turkey was to help distributors that do not have websites integrate their stock availability with eFinder, creating a new sales channel for them. With eFinder’s flexible search feature, customers can perform stock queries for single quick search and multiple product search. When customers find what they need, they can then head to the distributor’s physical store to make their purchase.
The process is a little more in-depth for those with webshops but the rewards are potentially greater; if a distributor with a website has the items a customer wants in stock, they can be sent directly through to the distributor’s webshop to buy.
Once distributors were onboarded with eFinder, the Turkish team took a two-pronged approach to helping them boost their online and offline sales. They created specific landing pages for products including those in the Formula, Contactor, and Softstarter Series, integrated with eFinder. In parallel, the eFinder application was built into a new general online price list website, a digital version of the existing physical catalog, which collects digital metrics about customer behavior.
“Using a web-based online price list instead of a printed price list gave us the opportunity to quickly deliver up-to-date price and product information to every point in Turkey. With the integration of ABB eFinder into this online price list, we have been able to quickly transfer our e-commerce distributors’ stock information to our customers,” explained Turkey’s Country Communication Manager Hakan Güney.
The feedback
As well as creating new digital spaces for distributors to engage with potential customers, generate leads, and convert them more easily into sales, ABB offers a host of support for distributors from pre-implementation right through to promotional campaigns.
This includes learning programs, such as live sessions on digital marketing and e-commerce trends to accelerate distributors’ e-commerce initiatives, close collaboration with ABB’s global e-commerce team to ensure it is as easy as possible for distributors to access features and details about ABB’s products, digital marketing support and regular in-person meetings.
One local distributor was particularly impressed with the pre-implementation information they received from ABB: “The integration process started with an email from ABB introducing the application. The document explaining what to do to benefit from the application was clear and comprehensive,” they said.
“Since we only sold ABB products, we quickly obtained the product information for our site through documents provided by ABB. Sales to users through eFinder had higher turnovers compared to other referral sources, which we were very impressed with. For 2024, we will aim for even higher e-commerce turnovers with ABB's support.”
Another distributor was pleased to see their online sales increase significantly with the referral traffic they received via eFinder.“eFinder traffic ranks highly among referral sources,” they noted. “A key benefit is that users directed to our site from the ABB eFinder app can complete their purchases quickly as they trust the brand's website referral.”
Next steps
While the initial results of the eFinder campaign in Turkey have been positive, there is still significant room for development. The next step is to divide distributors into segments, depending on how they perform to ensure they are getting the best out of our program.
In addition, we plan to create customized targets for each of our digital partners, which we believe will improve the quality of the metrics we receive. Finally, to encourage our distribution partners further, we will expand the additional support we offer ‒ from loyalty programs to software support. We are excited to build on these foundations in 2024 with our Turkish customers, and bring the lessons learnt from this initiative into our campaigns in other markets.
