Over the past 18 years manufacturers have contacted us at BidLink asking questions such as:
- How can I increase my sales to the Department of Defense (DoD)?
- Does DoD currently buy the type of products I can produce? Answer is Yes
If you are a manufacture, DoD may already be purchasing your products and you don’t know it. Currently there are over 600,000 vendors registered to sell to DoD. Many of these vendors are brokers, mass distributors or resellers selling products produced by 1000’s of manufacturers. Unless you are receiving reports from every vendor that sells to DoD it may be a mystery on which manufacturers products are actually being purchased.
Manufacturers selling direct to DoD typically know what was sold at least for their product. Whereas the manufacturer selling using other methods such as mass distributors, resellers or brokers may not know exactly what was sold or how much it sold for. Most manufacturers especially ones selling through mass distributors do not usually know what their competitors are selling to DoD. Time spend researching this will benefit your company in many ways possibly increasing your product line.
How do I research sales of my products/competitors?
This can be done by reviewing past contract awards, procurement history and reviewing things like past GSA Schedule sales.
In case you are thinking DoD only buys complex systems, think again. DoD buys tons of non-specialty items everyday as well. These are the type of items you might find in a catalog or online and they are commonly known as a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS).
DoD buys millions of these COTS every year from both manufacturers and resellers. If you are a manufacturer the chances are pretty good that DoD is buying one of your competitors products that does exactly what your product does. It will take some time and research but the rewards can be good.
How do I research and look for products I could make?
DoD has a catalog of NSNs consisting of items they purchase on a regular basis. Part of this catalog lists what is known as the approved source(s) (AKA the manufacturer) of the specific item they are purchasing against that NSN. In many cases there is only one approved source. Manufacturers of similar items or product lines should be actively monitoring this.
Let’s say your company manufactures padlocks and you see a competitor selling a lot of padlocks that are similar to yours, you might want to investigate and possibly become a new source. DoD wants competition for many reasons such as if one manufacturer can’t deliver they need other options.
DoDs catalog of NSNs consist of millions of items, some of them have only one approved source. Of these items many are simple everyday things like padlocks, hinges, coolers, radios, etc. the list is endless.
We randomly found one NSN currently manufactured by only one company. They are the only company listed as the approved source at this time. The data shows that DoD has been purchasing this item for close to 20 years with sales averaging over $100,000 per year for this one simple item. A manufacturer with similar capabilities/same product line could find this an easy item to become a new source for.
We quickly looked to see if there were other capable manufacturers producing similar items for this simple hardware item, we found several.
A few ways to increase your sales if you are a manufacturer:
- Review your sales to DoD
- Review your competitors sales to DoD
- Review similar items your competitor produces. Are they the only approved source?
You won’t know if your competitors’ brand is outselling yours if you don’t look.
BidLink is a provider of DoD procurement research tools and has been a leading provider of industry marketing data relating to DoD procurement and solicitations for the past 18 years. Find defense contracts and research competition. Learn more at www.bidlink.net
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