More designers than ever before are accessing the internet for online tools, both for product selection and design, writes Glenn Jarrett, head of electronics marketing at RS Components
Faced with increasingly challenging market conditions, some volume distributors have struggled to maintain growth over the last twelve months. RS is not among them. Our strategy to increase our product range has paid-off, resulting in a strong double-digit growth rate of 11% for the six months ended 30th September.
We have responded to customer demand with the introduction of 40,000 new lines to the electronics range this year, with price reductions on more than 18,000 products delivering exceptional choice and value-for-money to our customers.
In the last twelve months we have streamlined our new product introduction process so that we are now able to introduce the latest products and technologies to market in a matter of days.
The past year has seen a continuing dependency on the Internet within the electronics design community, with engineers wanting simple, fast, self-serve access to online tools and resources, and the ability to easily find and buy the right products for their design.
Part of our ongoing challenge is the refinement of online search relevancy for our ever-expanding range of technology and products and, following extensive research, in July this year we unveiled a new website with enhanced search features and browsing capability, which now brings 8,000,000 visitors to the site per month.
Over 80,000 engineers have registered with DesignSpark, our online design community, with a large proportion downloading our free-of-charge DesignSpark PCB design software tool. RS’ comprehensive library of free, downloadable 3D CAD models has also proved very popular due to the huge variety of formats supported.
Similarly, suppliers are also becoming increasingly reliant on the reach that these online resources provide to help them engage with the proliferation of fragmented design departments around the globe.
Going forward, our plan continues to focus on International expansion while maintaining a strong foundation in the UK. As part of our move toward locating products close to our customers for next-day delivery, we have just opened a new warehouse in Shanghai, China, and invested a further £10m in electronic component stock there. We see substantial opportunities in Asia Pacific and also in the Eastern European market.
Looking ahead, we remain optimistic that our strategy will continue to drive growth. Our Group financial results for October show sales growth of 5% year on year.
As a broad range distributor of electronics components and complementary technology, we believe that RS is uniquely structured to support a vast, expanding customer base.