NATIONAL Semiconductor Corp. is taking its microchip marketing program online with two new interactive ventures.
The $2.5 billion Santa Clara, CA-based manufacturer and marketer has set up a new Web site (www.buy.national.com) and brought out the Internet Content and Exchange (ICE) system, which combines National’s product catalog with those of its distributors.
The company says this is the first such approach in its industry. But interactive marketing director Phil Gibson is loath to predict performance goals for either the site or ICE because they are too new.
The Web site was launched to streamline and simplify product specification and ordering. National’s customers-manufacturers of products like personal computers, wireless phones and sound boards-can go online to find parts from distributors around the world. Orders can be placed on the site, with customers using credit cards for payment.
Buy.national.com generates a single “order parts” query that gives customers access to products through an “availability” table and creates hyperlinks with distributors stocking those parts.
When National began testing the site last September, it had only 135 users. With the number of users nearly doubling every month, Gibson claims the online customer base has grown to nearly 1,000.
Meanwhile, ICE replaces a system that required National to customize catalogs for every distributor individually. So far National has signed on about 15 companies to participate. Gibson would like about 100 by year’s end. “It’s an aggressive target, I know,” he says.
Down the road, National is looking to form affiliate marketing relationships with other suppliers or companies, perhaps with the commission-like structures used by online marketers such as Amazon.
com. It might also consider creating vertical Web sites as an outgrowth of ICE.
The company hopes to convert about 15% of its business to e-commerce. But Gibson says National’s customers can’t give up personal relationships with distributors and original equipment manufacturers because these organizations can “offer deals and negotiate price breaks and that sort of thing.”
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