ARG Industrial specializes in supplying foundation equipment and is a leading distributor of the type of heavy-duty hydraulic hoses used by the pile driving industry.
The business started as one store in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1980, and has since expanded to 13 locations in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Products include ARG Industrial’s own line of specialized hoses and supplies for pile driving applications and other offerings from vendors like Danfoss, Brennan, Zsi and Dixon.
“The pile driving industry is one of our core market segments we try to highlight,” said Mike Powers, ARG Industrial’s chief digital and technology officer.
In addition to its retail and wholesale centers, ARG Industrial has a robust online shopping portal containing detailed product information and pictures plus real-time information on pricing and stock availability.
Now it’s even easier for the company’s customers to buy online, thanks to a brand-new feature on its e-commerce platform – a comprehensive, interactive tool called Hose Builder that simplifies and removes the guesswork from the process of buying a hose assembly online.
Digital transformation
Powers joined ARG Industrial in 2020 to help lead the company’s digital transformation. It started with the e-commerce website, which took about a year to develop and roll out. According to Powers, the biggest challenge initially was making sure there was enough valuable information for customers to help guide their purchases.
“Four years ago, when we started the journey to developing the website, we realized you need rich product information from the manufacturers.… For example, there could be anywhere from 15 to 30 fields of product information an end user in the pile driving industry needs to be aware of, based on all the attributes of a hose or a fitting,” he said. “We went through a process of making sure we had images and enriched product descriptions for the products we stock.
“It was really important for us to show pricing, availability, attributes, specs such as inside diameter … so that anybody interested in buying products from us could find that information online. That was step one of our digital journey.”
The next step for Powers was overseeing the creation of ARG Industrial’s Hose Builder feature, which he says took about 18 months to complete. The tool, which was built with the help of Spiral Scout, a California software developer, was unveiled this past spring. The way Hose Builder works is that once a specific type of hose is chosen, the program provides selections for fittings, working pressure and accessories as well as choices for critical details like length, angle of rotation and testing options for users.
“The Hose Builder process is really intuitive,” said Kim Hunley, director of marketing for ARG Industrial. “As people go along that journey of selecting a hose, they’re only going to be shown those components which apply to that application.… The rich data set we use helps with this selection process.
“The Hose Builder process is really intuitive. As people go along that journey of selecting a hose, they’re only going to be shown those components which apply to that application.”
– Kim Hunley, ARG Industrial
“We realized pretty quickly there’s no other independent distributor in the hose and fitting space that we know of that’s built this digital capability.”
– Mike Powers, ARG Industrial
“People who are out doing pile driving, they’re not just using one hose. They are using a plethora of hoses for different types of heavy machinery and equipment. I think one of the huge value drivers here, just for the pile driving industry alone, is we’re building custom pile driving hose assemblies, and there’s a lot of information that goes into that.”
Tribal knowledge
Hunley and Powers point out Hose Builder was driven by the idea of taking all expertise around hoses and fittings that exists within ARG Industrial’s workforce and applying it in a way that can be easily accessed on a digital platform.
“Custom fabrication or assembly really takes somebody with tribal knowledge and the know-how and even part number memorization to listen to customers, ask good questions and then be able to give them a custom configuration that meets their needs,” said Powers. “In the industrial distribution space, all that has been in person at the branch, so we’re trying to [replicate] the tribal knowledge and the customer engagement happening in our branches and at our front counters.”
Powers sees Hose Builder as “the North Star of our e-commerce journey” and something that’s quite unique. “We realized pretty quickly there’s no other independent distributor in the hose and fitting space that we know of that’s built this digital capability,” he said.
“As we were developing it, we realized that there were applications for this configurator outside of just the hose and fitting space. There are various other segments we see potentially needing or wanting to leverage this type of technology,” said Powers. “We are deploying it on our own website, but I’m happy to say we actually have a distributor in the gasket and seals industry that has signed on to add it to their [e-commerce] website.”
ARG Industrial’s e-commerce platform is about to undergo another change to improve their customers’ online experience. It’s a new feature within Hose Builder called “Pick Clicks,” which allows users to zero in on what they need by clicking on a specific hose, fitting or another part within an image that’s displayed on the website.
Powers says his company is excited to introduce this new piece of functionality for pile driving equipment users who prefer a more visual method of shopping online. “ARG Industrial is leading the charge with early adoption of new technology and tools to enrich our customer’s online experience,” he said.
This article was originally published in PileDriver magazine and is reprinted with permission.