Digi-Key and Future Electronics are among distributors investing in automation and new distribution centers. Digi-Key is doubling the capacity of a largely automated distribution center in Minnesota.
Fastenal's e-commerce sales, which include connected vending machines and its website, increased by 27% in the first quarter and accounted for 35% of total sales. Fastenal's website alone generated 10% of sales for the month of March.
Amazon created a distribution center out of a Woodland Hills, Calif., location that had been intended as a grocery store to accommodate higher e-commerce demand during the pandemic. This strategy is also being used at some Whole Foods locations, with Amazon limiting the hours the store is open to customers so it can dedicate more time to online grocery fulfillment.
Distributors must prioritize new ideas, communication and curiosity during the coronavirus pandemic if they want to make the right changes for their business, says Mark Dancer, NAW Fellow and founder of the Network for Business Innovation. "Because of the disruptive threat of digital transformation, distributors who don't respond that they're here to help can actually do damage to their brand," he says.
Amazon's decision to stop guaranteeing two-day delivery for nonessential items could be hurting freight order lead times, writes Zach Strickland. This could potentially hurt less-than-truckload operators if shippers are able to wait and consolidate orders into fewer shipments, he writes.
Copywriting skills are important for sales representatives, particularly as email continues to play a big role in business relationships. Sales reps should eliminate their use of cliches and buzzwords, try several subject lines to find the best possible option and review successful emails to learn new copywriting techniques, writes James Meincke.
The coronavirus pandemic is like a marathon in the endurance we'll need to overcome it, but the pandemic is also different because we don't know the length or where the finish line is, writes Becky Robinson, founder and CEO of Weaving Influence. "[W]e can be easily overwhelmed if we spend too much time thinking about all the months of difficulty that might lie ahead of us," she writes.
Employees repeatedly making the same mistakes should prompt leaders to reassess what they are doing, which might mean rethinking the job description or asking the employees to discover the errors themselves, writes Dan Rockwell. "Don't blame your employee for a situation you've been tolerating," he writes.
In his blog post, NAW Institute Fellow Mark Dancer says, "The conduct of business will change as the coronavirus crisis recedes, but it's too early to know the new normal with certainty. Just as first reporting in any emergency often proves to be inaccurate and wrong, so too may early predictions about a new normal for doing business miss the mark." Read his post.
