Denver, CO PRNewswire December 11, 2000 Miller Electric, in a recent move to internet distribution, has implemented InfoNow's iCommerce service. The InfoNow service will allow Miller Electric to sell its welding equipment over the Internet through existing distribution networks. Miller Electric currently distributes to 2,300 locations, generating an estimated sales of more than 2 billion dollars a year. In an initial iCommerce pilot program, Miller will begin with 25 of its distributors, (representing more than a thousand reseller locations), and include other key reseller partners early in 2001.
Miller Electric's Web site is one of its top lead generators and boasts the highest closure rate of all Miller sales tools. The company estimates that one out of every two leads generated via their Web site results in a purchase. And with the advent of iCommerce, opportunities are passed directly to the distributor partner for immediate completion and fulfillment.
Miller is well aware of the power and convenience of online shopping, as well as the growing demand from buyers to be able to purchase over the Internet, said Tim DeMars, senior vice president of Miller Electric. However, we have spent years cultivating relationships with our local distributors through whom we currently sell a large percentage of our products, and we have struggled with how to extend these partnerships into the eCommerce realm. InfoNow's iCommerce service is the only solution on the market that allows us to sell and serve the customer online through our partners rather than bypassing them. With iCommerce we are able to provide the end customer with the buying choices they want and remain committed to the success of our distribution partners.
Benefits of Miller's move to InfoNow's system include identifying the right distributor, providing a productive shopping experience, managing the checkout process, completing the transaction, and settling the purchase to the distributors' own accounts. Many Fortune 1000 companies in the industrial, hi-tech and other manufacturing sectors are faced with increased challenges in the Internet economy to preserve the loyalty and livelihood of their distributor and sales networks, said Karen Smith, senior analyst at Aberdeen Group. Unfortunately, many companies have failed to devise strategies that make distributors part of the online buying process. Miller Electric's approach to meet the end buyers' needs through the distributor as opposed to directly from the manufacturer is the logical solution. InfoNow has provided the technology for Miller to accomplish this.
In addition to its other benefits, InfoNow uses patent pending many-to-many-to-many (M3) cataloging technology, which enables commerce to occur in the complex, multi-partied environment created between a manufacturer, a distributor and an end customer. InfoNow believes the deployment of iCommerce with Miller Electric, and its patent-pending M3 technology, further demonstrates our leadership in enabling companies to realize the selling and support benefits of the Internet in partnership with their existing distribution channels, said Michael Johnson, CEO of InfoNow Corporation. InfoNow has delivered the eBusiness tools necessary for Miller Electric to make this a reality and is excited to do so for other industry leaders in the future.
