Ravish Patel

W W Grainger is a leading distributer and supplier of day to day operating, maintenance, and repair for industrial and institutional use across the Globe. According to Hoovers.com, the first office started in 1927 and now it has more than 400 offices and showrooms in North America. According to the latest financial report (2008 Annual), the company has exceeded the expected performance even in economic downtimes. This shows that they have a robust business model and provide high customer value. The history of Grainger indicates that they are early adaptors of technology and give a high value to customer satisfaction. According to Gardner 2000, grainger.com was launched in 1995; which is too early for an industry in which Grainger is into. According to Gardner 2000, they started their first online sales in 1999 when they launched two other websites orderzone.com and findmro.com . These are some of the major steps taken by Grainger to understand the importance of e-Commerce and B2B eMarketing.
 

Marketing Mix and Services

      Offline vs Online

Grainger has successfully balanced its offline and online services using and effective strategy targeted towards customer value. Being the early adaptor of IT infrastructure and internet it has gained a competitive advantage over its competitors.