Anglia Components has made is biggest move into the online component distribution market with the launch of a website for design engineers.
The website, called Anglia Live, will give visibility of the volume availability of 300,000 products from 150 suppliers for UK-based designs moving to full production.
“Our aim is to allow customers to take projects seamlessly from embryonic design to volume production,” said Steve Rawlins, CEO of Anglia.
“Customers are only offered parts recommended for new designs, and are given full visibility of Anglia current and projected stock levels and any product change or termination notifications (PCN / PTN) issued by the supplier,” said Rawlins.
This is a significant new venture for Anglia which will offer next day delivery, small volume orders and for the first time, free delivery on orders over £30.
It will also post real-time stock availability information on its website.
“This is a big change for us,” said Rawlins.
So is Anglia going after the online business of the big four - RS, Digi-Key, Farnell and Mouser?
“I expect the catalogue firms to now see us as competitor in the UK, particularly with our production volume capability and our UK inventory,” said Rawlins.
Rawlins said that Digi-Key is the one online distributor actively targeting small order production business.
“Our target is the design engineer with a plan to go to volume,” said Rawlins. “We will not target service and repair sector for example. We are not targeting the guy who wants to buy just 10 items.”
Product data
Anglia has spent more than a year and invested £800,000 designing the website which has a new parametric search engine.
According to Rawlins, the quality of the search engine is key and this has been possible because “we have loaded product data that has been verified to ensure complete consistency of presentation”.
“We are entering the online market behind the catalogue companies, but I believe we have the best product search engine available,” said Rawlins “We say the customer is just three clicks from finding most products, and four clicks for resistors, capacitors and micros where the choice is greater,” said Rawlins.
It provides full predictive search based on Anglia designation, industry standard part number or description, and images and manufacturers’ data sheets for the majority of the distributor’s 300,000 products.
This is the fruition of a 10 year plan for Rawlins to place Anglia firmly in the online distribution market.
First he considered an acquisition, but then decided the right approach was to do it themselves. “Ten years ago the cost of entry was too high, now the necessary software development costs less than £300,000,” said Rawlins.
“I have no sales target in mind for the new service, frankly, I don’t know what is going to happen,” said Rawlins.
But Rawlins does believe the website will increase Anglia’s number of customers, currently around 3,000, perhaps significantly.
“I hope it will be at least x2 and free delivery will do this,” said Rawlins.
For the first time Anglia is offering free UK and Eire delivery whether placed online, by email, fax or phone (for orders below £30 a handling charge of £4.95 will apply).
“It is fair to say the market is now looking for free delivery, and so we have to take a reduction in margins,” said Rawlins.
Rawlins insists the new web service will not replace Anglia’s existing telephone and direct sales. “I am still a great believer in the face-to-face sell. In fact we recruited five applications engineers last year,” said Rawlins.
Rawlins also believes the website will drive new sales of development kits and tools. “Our sales in this area have been poor,” said Rawlins.
“The stock and pricing information is truly live, order a device and the stock level will reduce in real time. We also provide information on future stock levels, reflecting shipments that we are expecting from our suppliers,” said David Pearson, Anglia’s technical director.