Test drive of GlobalSpecs' new PartFinder

Posted on May 21, 2007 by Dave J.

InfoCommerce has cranked up their blog with news, not just their weekly newsletter. This morning I found them with this news from GlobalSpec, introducing a new tool called PartFinder that “can assist those users in re-ordering parts, placing new orders, ordering replacement parts or finding a second source for their desired parts. Users can search for parts through a variety of criteria.”

Sounded interesting for component shoppers, which is the life-blood of GlobalSpec. A database of parts by part number certainly sounds handy.

A trip over to GlobalSpec.com (after trying ‘partfinder.com’ with no luck) showed no sign of the service. Turns out it is just one of the categories in their ‘engineering search’ tool. If you’ve got a specific part number, a handy little ‘best matches’ category shows up at the top, kind of like some Google searches. Or do the search on the PartFinder tab and you get detail such as manufacturer, source, and product category. Not bad.

For the above examples, looking to buy these parts from onlinecomponents.com is not so simple. You have to register to click-thru to their info. Unlike most distributors, these guys are smart enough to have a URL as their company name.

And some cases, they dump you to the source website for the information, if it is another directory. The one in the above results puts you to mectronic.com which also requires registration.

Okay, why all the testing?
Just because info-marketers can collect data and publish it, doesn’t mean we b2b-marketers have to trust that it will be of value to our target audience. The data has to be accessible, usable, and useful. If the engineers won’t use it, we should be smart enough to figure that out.

(And while I said it sounds ‘handy’, I haven’t discussed the question of what situations engineers would really need such a tool.)

Since GlobalSpec is just repurposing the existing data they have and embedding it in their existing search tool, there is little harm in this feature. But how much value will it add to their service?

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  • Anonymous

    Dave,I read a story about this earlier in the online version of “Supply and Demand Chain” magazine. One of the things that was most interesting to me is that 69% of the people surveyed by GlobalSpec said they search by part number at least once a month. I was surprised by that statistic until I realized that many distributors in the component and electronic arena have a part number search featured right on their site. I also noted that some companies are actually buying part number keywords on Google. The whole experince was fascinating to me.My takeaway – if I had a business that was part number heavy, I think I would look closer at these types of tools.Jim

  • Anonymous

    Dave,I read a story about this earlier in the online version of “Supply and Demand Chain” magazine. One of the things that was most interesting to me is that 69% of the people surveyed by GlobalSpec said they search by part number at least once a month. I was surprised by that statistic until I realized that many distributors in the component and electronic arena have a part number search featured right on their site. I also noted that some companies are actually buying part number keywords on Google. The whole experince was fascinating to me.My takeaway – if I had a business that was part number heavy, I think I would look closer at these types of tools.Jim

  • Anonymous

    Not exactly B2B but relevant perhaps?PartStore.com Listed Among Internet Retailer’s Top 500http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070523005683&newsLang=en

  • Anonymous

    Not exactly B2B but relevant perhaps?PartStore.com Listed Among Internet Retailer’s Top 500http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId;=20070523005683&newsLang;=en

  • Anonymous

    Dave,I am constantly frustrated by forced registration and saw a study recently that showed that over 50% of registrations on industrial sites and directories are for fake names. What exactly is this accomplishing? It appears that it would provide better reporting on the site’s traffic, but the forced registration itself has got to reduce the amount of people actually using the site.John

  • Anonymous

    Dave,I am constantly frustrated by forced registration and saw a study recently that showed that over 50% of registrations on industrial sites and directories are for fake names. What exactly is this accomplishing? It appears that it would provide better reporting on the site’s traffic, but the forced registration itself has got to reduce the amount of people actually using the site.John