Industrial supplies on IndiaMART: turning a catalogue enquiry into a repeat buyer

The enquiry was for twenty 6205 bearings from a foundry in Shiroli MIDC, outside Kolhapur. You quoted, they paid, and that was the last you heard. A first IndiaMART order from a plant is a test, bought in a hurry because the regular vendor could not supply. Turn it into an account. Once the goods are fitted, call the person who ordered. Find out what else the plant consumes in your range and who buys it, and offer a short rate list for the items it reorders. In your CRM, the plant becomes an account, not a closed lead.

Why the first order is a test

The likeliest story: a machine was down, the approved vendor did not have the part, and a maintenance engineer was told to find it today. You were fast, and you had it.

That order was bought outside the plant's normal process. The next order for the same part goes back to the normal process: an indent from maintenance, a purchase order from purchase, sent to a vendor already on the approved list. Unless you get into that process, you will hear from the plant again only at the next breakdown. And only if they happen to search again and find you first.

Who at the plant you need to know

Four people, and the one who sent the IndiaMART enquiry may be the least important of them.

The maintenance head knows what fails and what the machines eat: bearings, belts, seals, grease, cutting tools. The stores in-charge knows consumption, minimum stock levels and which items keep running out. The purchase manager owns the approved vendor list, the approved makes for each item and any rate contracts. Big orders? The plant head signs.

Your first contact is usually a maintenance engineer or a junior purchase executive. Be useful to that person, and ask them to introduce you to the other three.

The delivery call: six questions that find the second order

Call a few days after delivery, once the part has been fitted. Ask these in a natural order, not as a form, and write the answers down while you talk.

1. "Did the bearings fit, and is the conveyor running again?" A clean first order is your licence to ask anything else.
2. "Was this for a breakdown, or do you need these regularly?" Tells you whether this item alone can be repeat business.
3. "Who looks after bearings and belts in stores?" Gets you the name of the person who knows consumption.
4. "Besides bearings, what do you buy regularly in this line, such as belts, grease, fasteners or cutting tools?" This question finds the second order.
5. "Do you buy these from one vendor on a rate contract, or order by order?" Tells you whether you are trying to win a contract or a series of quotes, and when the contract ends.
6. "What does purchase need from us to add us to the vendor list?" Starts the paperwork while the engineer still remembers you saved the day.

Do not ask all six if the first answer is a complaint. Fix the complaint first and call again. When purchase answers question 6, our note on getting onto an approved vendor list lists the papers to have ready.

From single orders to a rate list

When the plant names five to fifteen items it buys repeatedly, send a one-page rate list for just those items. Use their part numbers and approved makes, a validity date, delivery to stores against their purchase order, and the stock you will hold for them.

Hold rates only on items you can stock and whose costs are steady. Anything tied to steel, rubber or imported parts needs a price review line. A rate you cannot keep loses the plant faster than a higher rate would have.

Some buyers are not worth this effort. A contractor buying for one installation has no second order. A trader reselling your goods buys on price every time. A plant far beyond your delivery reach will go back to a local vendor. For these, a good first order and a polite file note are enough.

Keep the plant as an account, not a closed lead

Repeat business is lost in the CRM before it is lost in the field. The IndiaMART lead is marked "won", and nothing tells anyone to call again. Make each plant one account record with these fields:

• Plant name, location and the vendor code once you have one
• Contacts by role: maintenance, stores, purchase, signatory
• Items bought, with part numbers and approved makes
• Last order date and quantity for each item
• Expected reorder date, estimated from consumption
• Rate contract or rate list end date
• Source: IndiaMART, so you can judge the package by the accounts it brought

Merge records by company, not by the person who enquired. A plant that writes in through four different engineers in a year looks like four strangers otherwise.

Imagine: four enquiries from one foundry

Imagine a Kolhapur dealer in bearings, belts and abrasives. Over a year, one foundry in Shiroli sent four IndiaMART enquiries, each from a different engineer, for a different item. The dealer quoted each one against two or three rivals and won two. Nobody noticed it was the same plant, because each enquiry sat in the CRM as a separate lead under a different name.

Merging the records showed the pattern. After the next order the dealer called the maintenance head and asked the six questions. The fettling shop went through grinding wheels and cut-off discs every week, and the sand plant ate V-belts and bearings. All of it came from three different vendors, order by order, with nobody comparing their rates across the year. The dealer sent a rate list for fourteen items with stock held locally, and asked purchase about registration. Nine of the fourteen items moved over in the first quarter (an illustrative count); the other five stayed with the incumbent because of approved makes the dealer could not supply. Those nine orders came straight in, with no comparison.

Group your won leads by company

Export your IndiaMART leads marked "won" and group them by company. Any plant that appears twice or more is an account you have been treating as a string of strangers. Those plants are where the delivery calls start. For the first enquiry stage, our note on converting IndiaMART leads covers reply time and quotations, and industrial supply sits among the trades in our e-commerce sales and marketing pages. If you want help setting up the account records and the calls behind them, tell us what you need; IndiaMART and marketplace lead management and account management and key account growth are the related services.