Distributors Get Their Own Shot At Web Sales

Improved customer service is key to online opportunities

By Clinton Wilder

any companies are hesitant to launch large-scale Internet-commerce efforts because online selling threatens their existing distribution channels. But products and services that will roll out this week aim to remedy that by making it easier for distributors to sell on the World Wide Web.

At Internet Commerce Expo in Los Angeles, Open Market Inc. will introduce LiveCommerce, software that lets manufacturers create Web catalogs that link to distributors' sites. At Electronic Commerce World in Philadelphia, Sterling Commerce Inc. will unveil Commerce:Webforms software and the Commerce Now! service, which will l et smallpartners do business via the Web with distributors using Sterling's EDI software.

"When harnessed properly, the Internet presents more opportunities than threats to the distribution channel," says Scott Lundstrom, a director at Advanced Manufacturing Research, a technology research firm in Boston. "The Net can create better customer service for distributors than phone, paper, and fax ever did."

Open Market's LiveCommerce catalog is based on technology from Waypoint Software in Boston, which Open Market acquired in February. C&K Components Inc., an electrical switch maker in Watertown, Mass., will use LiveCommerce to sell two new product lines on its Web site . The company's distributors will link from their home pages to the catalog, letting buyers configure products on the C&K site but buy from the distributor. "We do 60% to 70% of our business through distributors, and most of them are excited about it," says Scott Hunt, C&K's director of MIS.

LiveComme rce runs on Windows NT and will be available next month for $45,000. It can be bundled with Open Market's Transact E-commerce engine, which sells for $125,000 for companies selling their own products.

Also at ICE, Digital Equipment will introduce virtualStore, a Web package for retailers. Connect Inc. in Mountain View, Calif., will roll out OrderStream 2.0, an enhanced version of its E-commerce software with easier links to EDI and legacy applications such as SAP R/3. IBM will unveil new software for online credit-card sales and upgrade its Cryptolope security technology.

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