Online Marketplace Provides Suppliers with Actionable Marketing Data

MFG.com (Marietta, GA), one of the world’s largest online manufacturing marketplaces, has launched a new ShopIQ™ tool redesigned specifically to give suppliers the actionable marketing data they need to maximize both platform and business success. The new ShopIQ, launched on September 5, 2017, represents one more element in the marketplace’s ongoing effort to not only support the platform, but also offer manufacturers more tools and techniques to assist job wins and customer development.

There is a direct correlation between frequent and consistent participation (i.e., logging on and quoting jobs often) and winning business in this marketplace. The new ShopIQ demonstrates that relationship in tangible terms with data showing that, on average, the most successful suppliers quote 50 percent more often than their competitors and win awards valued at seven to eight times more. A nonlinear relationship exists, pointing to two other factors at play: (1) more bidding leads to greater buyer familiarity with a manufacturer and (2) more bidding leads to supplier insights on how to better position quotes.

The new ShopIQ offers macro-level data for the trailing twelve-month period for an individual supplier versus the top performing suppliers. Micro-level data down to the individual RFQ supports these elements. Comparison categories include the number of logins each month, the number of quotes offered, the annual awarded value and the average quoted price. In addition, the tool identifies the supplier’s quote activity by application and lists the most quoted combinations of process and material along with the relative competitiveness of the supplier’s bids in each category. ShopIQ even offers manufacturers the ability to identify similar process-material combinations going forward by placing a “Create Saved Search” icon alongside it. Suppliers can flag the system to deliver automatic notifications when opportunities matching such saved searches appear on the platform.

“Earlier versions of this tool taught us a lot about meaningful market analysis data,” said Bo Hagler, the chief executive officer, MFG.com. “We concluded that we were not quite hitting the mark, so we went back to the drawing board and revamped the tool entirely. The new tool doesn’t look anything like the earlier versions. It employs a completely different approach and offers suppliers a different set of metrics. It gives them the ability to understand precisely where they are most competitive in terms of manufacturing process and material. Many companies will be surprised by the data. Yet, given this knowledge, they can elect to focus on RFQs involving their optimal process-material combination.”

He added, “ShopIQ also allows suppliers to test new marketing strategies and gauge impact by isolating data from the date of strategy initiation to the current date. I can’t think of any other business solution that offers its subscribers a tool that delivers this capability or shows them precisely how they stack up against their peers.”

mfg.com