By Owen Ferguson

Ordering memory from Samsung will soon be a whole lot easier, thanks to the company's new Web site, MyMemoryStore.com. The site, which opened for business in the U.S. on Sept. 13, will soon be available to Canadian customers, allowing resellers to order and track the shipment of Samsung memory modules online.

Ken Yap, senior manager of Internet marketing for Samsung Inc., explains where the idea for the site came from. "About nine months ago we looked at the demands and needs within the distribution channel, and we found that the profit margins within the distribution channel were being squished," he says. "We found that most of the time our business partners had to spend a lot of time on administration, namely following up on purchase orders, tracking the shipments and whatnot. So we thought 'Hey, wouldn't it be nice if we can build an infrastructure that helps our partners within the channels to off-load their administration to us and have them spend more productive time with their prospective clients?'"

The company decided to buid an e-commerce site for its business customers called MyMemoryStore.com, and "targeted partners — VARs, distributors and resellers within the channels," says Yap.

However, Yap is quick to admit that Samsung isn't the first company to distribute along these lines.

"The first company to try this model was Micron Semiconductors," he says, "but their common site is positioned, I think, judging from a competitor's perspective, for mass distribution for all kinds of products, including obsolete product lines. We have come in with a better infrastructure, and also we don't carry older inventories. We only carry all the popular and top of the line products."

For now, the site remains tightly focused. But Yap says expansion plans are already on the drawing board.

"We want to start out slow, to polish our process," says Yap, "so we are mainly generating memory modules right now, and those part numbers are mainly the higher volume products for popular PCs and brands . . . but as soon as we polish the purchasing part of it and the product flow part of it, we're going to start carrying a bigger spectrum of product lines."

Although the name brands MyMemoryStore.com as a memory selling site, Yap sees it as more than that.

"First of all, we want to build an industry portal that allows the business partner to come in and track the relevant industry information," he says. "Second of all, obviously, we are here for business, and we want to help them out within the channel, meaning minimizing the inventory overhead."

Yap is adamant that the site is an addition to the regular channels, not a replacement for them. "We are not here to undercut our business partners, especially at the distribution level," he says. "Obviously distributors have their own channel reach and partnerships within the channels, and on top of that, there are a large number of smaller resellers and distributors that are not cost effective for them to serve. So that's where we come in."

So how does the process work?

"Inventory is located in our distribution centre in Southern California and our distribution also comes from a so-called build-to-order site. So we have two models basically. One model is to ship product from our inventory, and the other model is to build to order. Say, for example, that a customer places an order that we do not happen to have in inventory, then we can build it in 48 hours and ship it out," explains Yap. "With this infrastructure we enable them to drop ship their purchase within 48 hours. I think that's a compelling proposition to them, especially the smaller players within the channels."

Although the site is only available to American resellers right now, Yap says it will be available to Canadians early next year.

"For now we don't ship to Canada," he says, "That (Canadian availability) would be within the foreseeable future, probably the first or second quarter. As I say, we want to polish our processes first."