1.Mouser Electronics

Mouser Electronics is presently a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Incorporation. The industry knows this company as one of the popular distributors of electronic components and semi conductors. All their business and shipping operations are carried out through the internet, which cuts down unneeded cost factors.

Who Uses Mouser Products?

Seeing to the fact that Mouser Electronics produces most of the products on its own, besides selling other vendor goods, there’s a high demand for this company’s creations. They’re dedicated to manufacturing and shipping goods to design engineers, structure engineers, computer engineers, electricians and particularly anyone that has anything to do with working with electricity and electricity related objects.

They have the fastest going catalog of semiconductors, with a worldwide support and a keen focus on customer satisfaction. To Mouser Electronics, customers and their satisfaction levels play and important part in forming their business end.

New Product Introduction Cycle:

Mouser basically has an on site product development work station. The company is always on the verge of developing something new, so that it can be introduced in the market on urgent basis. They have a speedy operation because of close ties to their suppliers. If your electronic distribution business isn’t foreseeing that much of success lately, you should assess your relationship with your supplier.

Ask your suppliers about the kind of goods their clients demand. This way, you’ll know which products are good for the valuable shelf space, and which one isn’t.

Mouser Electronics’ Ecommerce Model:

You can log on to the official Mouser.Com website to take a gander at the kind of goods they’re touting out. Anything that’s up there on the website for sale; it is set to be available through an easy to follow and easy to understand online payment method. Customers don’t like to be bogged down with vague details.

Support your electronic products through data sheets, currency types, reference design, custom design, automatic or one click ordering and such other features. These attributes will help your business attract more customers, while retaining the existing volume at the same time.

As far as Mouser Electronics is concerned; they honestly talk about electronic parts that are not compatible with existing machines. They also have a small description alongside each product, which tells potential clients if the product is going to be obsolete or not in a high demand. These practices let the consumers easily trust this company.

2. Trek 2000 – AKA ThumbDrive

Trek2000 is a group of companies that pack a punch against their competitors. Trek2000 is also known by the ThumbDrive name, which is related to its recent set of products. ThumbDrive is Trek2000’s very own patented USB Flash Drive, which comes alongside a state of the art design and a huge compatibility list.

Being an Asia based electronic distributor, Trek has got a lot of awards and partners under its belt. You can log on to this page: http://www.thumbdrive.com/trek2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90&Itemid=55 to take a look at Trek2000 business partners. Names, such as; Toshiba, Sanyo and Lenovo not only speak for credibility, but they also refer to the kinds of services that Trek2000 is providing to its customers.

Besides supplying USB Flash Drive, this company is known for operating at global level for touting out goods from the Wireless, Anti Piracy, Compression, Encryption, Mobile Media Solutions and such other services.

As said by one of the Trek representatives, “Trek has always been at the forefront of the digital industry, and it is reflected in the solutions it offers consumers. Trek has moved from its original ‘plug and play’ technology to its new wireless ‘insert and play’ capabilities, once again staying ahead of the market.”, people believe what this company is capable of doing, and what it is offering presently.

Trek’s Recent Achievement(s):

Being an electronic distributor that operates in different countries, Trek2000 has overcome all the obstacles so far. On July 18 – 2011, Trek announced the supply of FluCard and Ai-Ball to its supplier (Kaga Electronics) in Japan. Kaga Electronics is Trek’s largest distributors in Japan, grossing over $2 Million in pure profits for FY 2011 so far.

By the way, on an individual level Kaga itself is an electronic distributor. Doesn’t that give you an idea? You can set up your electronic distribution business as a supplier for some major company. This way, you wouldn’t have to invest a lot of money in creating products, shipping them from all over the world and customer services.

All you’ll have to do is operate under the parent company’s name, while making sure that they pay you a fair share for distributing their electronic components. At an individual level, in a certain region, you’ll be recognized as an electronic distributor, with a healthy client list. This kind of business practice has been around for a long time now.

3. Heilind Electronics:

If it comes to interconnect, wire cables or electromechanical component distribution, none of them does it better than Heilind Electronics. This company is majorly known for distributing goods in North American locations but since they recently expanded their operation, several South American locations are now also included in the business model.

Bishop and Associates recently conducted a survey for ranking top electronic distributors across the world. According to the survey, participants were rated in regards to the level of services, quality of services, quality of product, customer service, shipping charges, delivery schedules and stuff like that. Heilind Electronics was among the top few companies that fulfilled all the respondent questions in terms of a positive response.

According to the Vice President of Heilind Electronics: Rick Nemeth, “A few years ago, we set out on a mission to focus the entire company’s time, energy and resources on ‘doing what’s noticeable to the Customer.” Rick’s statement is a clear evidence of how strongly customer service and electronic component quality is bonded together.

4. Avnet Electronics:

Avnet Electronics is mostly known for the marketing services for various clients across the globe. This company is recognized for marketing, distribution of electronics, offering design based solutions, and a wide range of world level supply chain that never fails to beat the competition.

Avnet Electronics believes in exceeding its customer/ client expectations. This company has raked in 4.5 Million products and tons of dollars in revenue, while bringing the power of ordering any electronic component from the comfort of your desktop.  For more details about this company, you can log on to www.avnet.com today.

Conclusion:

Electronic distribution is a very profitable business. The failure rate is quite low and you can lower it even further if you have researched the market properly. According to John Carlton, it’s the amount of research, knowledge and information prior to establishing a business, which really helps a potential business owner for a lifetime.

There are tons of factors that add up to exert a great deal of profit making possibilities. These factors, or opportunities, are commonly unknown to startup business personnel who’re looking to delve in the electronic distribution field.

Take a look at some of the appended opportunities, as they might come in handy during your future ventures. As a side note, you must know that whatever technology or channel you choose to adapt, you have to meet your customer expectations – it is a cardinal rule, and can’t be messed up with.

•              Technology:

•             Technology has tremendously gone through a lot of changes over the last couple of years. We don’t see the same old conventional product or services advertisement channels anymore. Particularly talking about electronic distribution services, companies are able to establish data centers and databases that help them manage their inventory and billing data in a better manner. More so, it’s the same technology that is helping customers get connected to the company’s customer care centers, because communication programs can now be extended all over the globe. Even though Amazon or eBay are not major electronic distributors, if we talk about their communication network and widespread ranges, we cannot deny its overall value.

•              Take Care of The Customers and The Business Will Take Care of Itself:

•                There’s an opportunity hidden within the above phrase. Being a business owner, if you’re willing to go an extra mile to take care of your customer, your business will be in a better shape. Your reputation will increase, while giving way to a whole new stream of profits, just because of the fact that your customers are now happier and satisfied. Make sure that your manage your customer expectations carefully in relation to demographics and language barriers.

•              Take a Pricing Advantage:

•             If you know how to play smart in the electronic distribution game, you might just end up saving a lot of money. Consumers only see one side of the picture “mostly”. If you’re cutting down on cost of your goods by effectively managing inventory, customer services and other variables that link directly or indirectly to the business, you’ll have a pricing advantage at your disposal.

•             In an ideal case, you should place your electronic components at half the price or slightly less price at your website. However, you can make up for this deduction through an increased charge at the back end, where you can probably charge your customers a little more for rendering your customer service, or sending them additional information or anything that has to do with the products.

•              Telesales:

•            Finally, there’re telesales, which leave a lot of room for flexibility and accessibility. This channel is flexible because your staff can operate from their home. Plus, telemarketing for an electronic distribution or any form of business, can help you reach customers directly over the phone.

Everything comes at a cost. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and you’ve heard this expression a lot of times. The “Cost” analogy isn’t referring to those green dollar bills here. Cost means the tradeoff phenomenon that comes in exchange of selling something off your electronic distribution website.

For example, consider the following issue:

-              Language Barriers In Electronic Distribution – A General Example:

Imagine that you have an electronic distribution website, which sells components on a global level. Someone from Latin American regions recently bought something off your website, and came back with a replacement complaint about it. Now this person doesn’t know how to speak English and he probably got someone to help him place the order.

If you have a small scale business and you don’t have that much of a customer support going on, other than you being at the other end of the “help line” most of the time, you wouldn’t be able to understand a word. Seeing that you don’t want to dis this customer, what is the proper solution here?

A)           Invest a small amount of money at local level, to hire people for your customer service department. This example is going to cost you a bit of a fortune, but if your customer service representatives are more of a multi linguistic type, they’ll know how to deal with Latin American people.

B)            You can sign up for one of those 1-800 Toll Free number services. Afterwards, you can hire some people to do the customer service thing for you. The biggest benefit of this example is that the people who’re going to do the representation for you, they can do so by working at their homes.

a.            You can cut down the cost of establishing an office, and all the fixed cost issues regarding electricity, water and gas payment.

C)            If you have a large scale business model, hiring customer service department folks is a lot easier. You can create small virtual departments all over different major regions where you trade. For instance, if you send your shipments to Nigeria, Mexico, UK, Spain and etc., you should be able to hire people in those regions to represent your services. This network is a little bit complicated but it is worth all the so called “hassle”. With the right standard of services and right kind of people to serve you, your customers will never complain about anything.

-              Shipping Charges – The Extra Expenses That May Just Surprise Your Customers!

Almost all kinds of vendor websites nowadays have support for different shipping modes and payment options. You’ve got your usual USPS mode that takes the longest to ship any kinds of good. There’s priority mail, and lastly there is expedited shipping options.

Right after placing the order and paying the shipping price, the customer is under the impression that he or she has paid for everything. However, they do not realize that the custom services department at their country’s airport, will also charge $5 – $10 as a payable tax. Actually, this small fee kicks in as soon as the delivery guy knocks at the customer’s door, with a due payment receipt and the ordered electronic components.

Do know that these kinds of fees and any other bills associated with a customer’s regional profile, are unavoidable. But in many cases, consumers who order things from websites for the first time; they think that they’ve been “cheated” on, as no one said anything about extra Custom Department or handling charges.

The best way for you to avoid this issue is to display warning messages on your “Order Now” pages. This way, your potential customers will know about all the charges related to the electronic components that they’re considering buying. (A small change can create huge positive differences for you from a long term perspective.)

Long ago, before the advent of the internet, electronic distribution was a major issue for all the distributors across the world. Think of an individual electronic distributor as a single body encapsulated within a bubble.

In the absence of the internet, all these bubbles from all over the world; they were unable to interact with each other, or their customers. Imagine if the online world never existed, some of the businesses may have shut down completely. It’s because of the fact that they would be able to expose their services to the entire world population – especially to the people who want to order something, while sitting thousands of miles apart.

Fast forward to today. You’ll see everything on the high rise. Electronic distribution as a profession has been adapted by people, companies and groups of individuals who’re looking to take this thing seriously, from a long term perspective. However, since we all know that nothing in this world comes as easy as it sounds, same goes for electronic distribution and electronic distributors.

When, on the seller side, people don’t know what kind of customer they’re dealing with, what kind of people are buying the product, shipping rate dilemmas and all that stuff, things become kind of hard. Top it off with language issues that suddenly trickle in when someone from Latin America or Pakistan or India, calls you up and tries to explain why he/she didn’t like the product. You’ll have a hard time making that conversation.

So if you’re considering taking this entire electronic distribution thing as a profession, this article will help you deal with some stuff that you haven’t contemplated yet. We’ll start with the introduction part, jump right into various problems associated with electronic distribution, and then finish it all up by stating down a brief introduction about top electronic distributors in the world.

Electronic Distribution- A Small But Brief Introduction:

So what exactly is electronic distribution? Does it involve something that has to do with electricity? If you were to Google the exact search phrase: “Electronic Distributor”, you’ll most likely see a Wikipedia link that explains conduction of electricity, in terms of how a charge is supposed to flow from one end of the wire, to another end.

Contrary to Wikipedia definition, electronic distribution in business world means something else. Take it as a simple phenomenon where a buyer buys something off your website, while you being the seller of electronic components. If you need a proper definition, read the following lines:

•            An electronic distribution channel is sort of a mechanism which involves circulation of information to the right people at the right time. So much so, that they can be converted into buyers and sellers, with sound and long term purchase decisions.

To be honest, the above definition applies to many kinds of businesses that involve sales of goods from one party to another. You’ll only be able to understand this business, once you have started it, or you have held enough discussions with people who are already in this business. Do know this that people don’t like to share their trade secrets, so you’re going to have to have that practical experience to discover what works in your best interest.

And by the way, electronic distribution involves the distribution of electronic components, such as coaxial cable connectors, sockets, wall mounts, plugs, electric chips and etc. Practically the term electronic distribution involves everything that has to do with providing good or services in the context of physical electronic components. These components may be used by the buyer to make a machine, to repair a computer, to light up his house, to rig wires with enhanced capabilities – so on and so forth.