Life science suppliers have long been communicating with their customers through the Internet and have invested enormous sums of money into the development and maintenance of their Web sites. But what will it really take to get more scientific customers to make their product purchases online? Because researchers purchase billions of dollars worth of products and services every year, it is critical for life sciences suppliers to understand the many ways in which orders are placed. Some scientists purchase their products internally through their research organization. For example, products can be obtained from a supply center/storeroom physically located on-site or via an internal purchasing hub ("hub"). Hosted within organizations, these hubs can be as simple as an internal site where researchers have the ability to order products from multiple suppliers to a complete "eProcurement solution"-providing ordering capabilities, but also affording researchers with the ability to search through content from multiple suppliers, view real-time stock availability, monitor and track orders, and access order history. If not restricted by their institutional purchasing regulations, many researchers can also go outside their organizations and order directly from suppliers, distributors and/or public scientific marketplaces (e.g., Biocompare). When purchasing via these channels, orders can be placed by traditional means-such as email, fax, mail or phone-or scientists can turn to the Internet and make their product purchases online. In addition to placing orders, scientists often turn to these resources for many other functions-from comparing product prices of different suppliers to identifying related products to obtaining shipping and delivery information. Based on a 40-question survey of more than 1,400 life scientists, How Life Scientists Buy Products: Implications For Effective Channel Management looks at scientists' habits when purchasing research products. Designed to help suppliers understand how scientists place orders and what drives them to use one method over another, this report examines four purchasing methods-internal supply centers, internal purchasing hubs, traditional methods and online-and identifies their perceived advantages and disadvantages. Understanding how scientific customers prefer to buy certain products and services will help suppliers identify which channels are more important over others and determine where future investments should be directed. Report Highlights How Life Scientists Buy Products: Implications For Effective Channel Management contains over 140 charts and/or tables and more than 30 cross-tabulations for the 40 survey questions. Below is a glimpse of the key findings derived from just a few of the survey questions: • According to the scientists surveyed, over 45% of their orders are placed via traditional methods (i.e. email, fax, mail or phone). (Question 7)
• The top advantages of purchasing products via an internal purchasing hub over a supplier Web site are that organization discounts are automatically enforced (66%) and it is faster than visiting multiple suppler Web sites individually (57%). (Question 14)
• When placing an order online, respondents overwhelmingly use supplier Web sites instead of scientific marketplaces. (Question 25)
• The most useful advanced features sometimes found at supplier Web sites are those that allow scientists to see customized prices for their organization, current product availability and the progress of their shipments. (Question 31)
• For nearly all steps of the purchasing process, researchers tend to use supplier Web sites over internal purchasing hubs. For example, when gathering information on a supplier's new products, over 80% of respondents most often turn to supplier Web sites. (Question 38) (electronic copy also includes 1 print copy) | 
