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Block Buying Group, one of the industry’s largest buying groups for eyecare professionals, designed its B2B Web site, www.blockbg.com, with a a few basic concepts in mind.

“A great B2B website should be easy for customers and vendors to sign up to use and log onto,” company president and founder Michael Block told VM. “It must be easy to navigate and contain functionality that makes using the site more time-effective than using the telephone or U.S. Postal Service. Additionally, the site must contain a well-organized menu of options leading to company information and interactive options. Business people, especially at the retail level, prefer ease of use and consistency,” noted Block. He added, “We have come a long way in the past few years in getting our members to participate in Web-based activities.”



According to Block, about 25 percent of his group’s members view and pay their monthly statements on the site. The statements are posted immediately after the month end close and email notifications are sent to members. “This saves time in waiting for a mailed statement,” he pointed out. “Online payment enables our members to make their payments easily and on-time in a secure enviornment. Also, we can reach our members efficiently and effectively by email and improve communication between our vendors and members by hosting a vendor promotional area.”

Group members also go online to read a monthly newsletter and use “Blockboard,” a classified area through which members buy, sell and search for employment opportunities. Other popular features of the site include a chat forum, a contact lens price comparison tool, access to Jobson’s Frames Data and continuing educations courses provided by Jobson.

Currently, online ordering is not available on the Block site, although the company provides links to our suppliers that allow that function.
“We stopped online ordering several years ago because it was ahead of its time,” said Block. “The suppliers really weren’t ready and the members were content to make their orders to suppliers and labs using toll-free numbers and fax machines. The ECPs tend to lag a little technologically, especially in their offices. However, we are looking at re-entering the area of online ordering. As a buying group this will require a huge effort on our part, as we represent so many vendors with varying file layouts and unique product lines.”

Block believes that to make online ordering effective and desireable, there needs to be a portal that unites all suppliers and labs. “If an ECP has to do some ordering online and the rest by phone, the time efficiency of online ordering is compromised. A truly effective system requires a lot of thought time and patience. A portal provider needs to write a back-end program for almost every vendor in the industry. We know this because we exchange invoicing and payment data with over 150 suppliers almost all of whom have unique and different systems. We have tried to get everyone to use a standard file layout, but it has been an uphill battle.

“An ECP should be able to go online and order the frame and lenses in each tray (patient) on a single screen for virtually every frame supplier, lab and contact lens manufacturer or distributor,” Block continued. “In order to facilitate this, the portal provider must write a custom software piece for virtually every suppler of optical goods that would flow into one giant online system. To date the industry has been too fragmented to allow this to happen without a major effort.” ■ ■

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