A great addition to your site, especially if you use distribution, is a stock check service. There are two major players who focus on this one aspect of the business and both have an impressive line up of satisfied clients. The first is being Stock Check. There customers include: Allegro Microsystems, Fairchild, AVX, Semtech, Microsemi, International Rectifier, Vishay, Amphenol, Power One. Stock Check is owned by The Hearst Corporation. Currently they have over 8 million part numbers listed and most updated daily. The other player in the market place is netCOMPONENTS. The have a commanding presence in the marketplace. According to their website they have over 30 Million line Items with 2.4 Million Page Views a Month and currently engaged with more then 2700 Suppliers. A quick list of those already working with netCOMPONENTS include:

Aerovox, Allegro, Allen Bradley, AMD, AMP, Amperite, Amphenol, Analog Devices, APD, Apem, Arcolectric, Aromat, Atmel, AVX, BI Technologies, BKC, Bourns, Burr Brown, Bussmann, California Micro Devices, Catalyst Semiconductor, Cherry, Chips & Technology, Clarostat, Cornell-Dubilier, Cypress, CTS, Dallas, Diodes, E-Switch, Epson, Exar, Fairchild, Fujitsu, General Instrument, General Semiconductor, Goldstar, Grayhill, Harris/GE/RCA, Hewlett Packard, HH Smith, Hilton, Hitachi, Honeywell, Hyundai, Illinois Capacitor, Intel, International Rectifier, IRC, Isocom, ITT, Kemet, Koa Speer, Kyocera, Lattice, Linear Technology, Littelfuse, Lumex, Keystone, Mallory, Maxim, Mepco/Centralab, Micro Quality/Varo, Micron, Microsemi, Mitsubishi, Molex, Motorola, Murata, National Semiconductor, NEC, NIC, Nichicon, NJRC, NJS, NTE, Ohmite, OKI, Omron, On Semiconductor, Panasonic, PCD, Performance Semiconductor, Philips, Quality Technologies, Raytheon, RCD, Roederstein, Rohm, Samsung, Seacor, Semicon, Siemens, Signetics, Siliconix, Solid State, Sony, Spectrol, Sprague, Stackpole, Susco, Teccor, Teledyne, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Tyco-Raychem, United Chemicon, Unitrode, Vishay, Wickmann, Xicon, Xicor, Zilog.

Phew. Is that enough to make you think twice if your name is not present? I guess the main question is that of reason to use a stock check system and the cost effectiveness. In short, the reason you want to use a stock check service on your site is that while Engineers or buyers can get technical or general product information for any given component, they need more! Usually so you can get the business, stock is key. With a stock check system on your site, you customers can check your franchised distributors for stock without ever leaving your website. As well, both companies offer reports, and ways to monitor which parts are getting queried by customers. With his info you can make sure stock is placed with one of your franchised distributors if none exists to capture these customers in the future. In addition to this, both companies offer ways to customize to your existing site. Now you might be saying: “I have no distributors- do I need stock check services?” Yes! Absolutely. And while you might not need Stock Check or netCOMPONENTS, you should have some way for customers to check factory stock and lead time. There is a temptation to make poeple register for this info, but once again we have covered why this doesn’t make sense. The goal is to make easy, and quick. There are many free ways to allow this, as well, like opentaps as well as several free scripts.