Where do you begin when talking about e-commerce? If we look at first impressions, do you think threat, or opportunity? Perhaps it conjures thoughts of ‘missed opportunity’. Or do you simply think of Amazon? For many, it will be a combination of these responses.
The industrial gases business is still very traditional in how it operates, based upon strong cultural and organisational paradigms. It’s still very customer-facing and local in nature. As a result, e-commerce essentially changes that business model, that culture, within our industry. It’s essentially a paradigm shift, something which can in turn create confusion and even a sense of fear.
This has been a thought process in the US market in particular in the last few years, for example, as distributors grappled with rapidly changing sales and marketing platforms in hardgoods channels – and for some time considered Amazon a threat to their business. A feeling of almost helplessness was born out of the belief that a platform like Amazon has the scale and user experience that no other can compete with. Whilst that fear or thought process has not disappeared, there’s an increasing acceptance now that established forces such as Amazon cannot scratch the surface of the knowledge and expertise required in the gases industry, for the time being at least; there’s more thinking around how the industry can turn e-commerce into an opportunity itself.
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