Buying goods over the Internet is fast becoming the norm for niche markets. Commitment to service is the key to a successful online enterprise.

Once upon a time, searching for replacement AV parts was an exercise in stamina and patience.

You trawled through the Yellow Pages, made countless phone calls and travelled to far-flung suburbs only to find that the part you wanted was out of stock. (“But we should have more in next week …”)

The online availability of utility products is growing at such a rate that we can hardly keep up. This is mainly due to the ease with which customers can find and buy what they need.

One company that is part of this trend is Just Lamps, which sells replacement front and rear projector lamps online for almost any model.

“Our website is absolutely the main tool of our business, as our product is perfectly suited to this platform,” managing director Asian operations Greg Murray says.

“It’s not a discretionary buy – people aren’t asking, ‘I wonder what it looks like in blue?’ They know exactly what they want, so it’s a matter of getting the product to them.”

The ‘light bulb moment’ for the business came about six years ago in the UK when one of the founders of the company realised that this niche industry was being poorly served by existing channels.

Developing what Greg calls a ‘one-stop lamp shop’ was seen as a lucrative way of tapping into the market.

Just Lamps now has distribution hubs in the United States, Europe and Asia, giving it the infrastructure to deliver lamps almost anywhere.

“The AV industry itself is regarded as very specialist, and within that we cover only a small sliver – replacing projector lamps. This includes lamps for DLP, LCD and data video projectors, as well as a broad range of rear-projection television lamps.”

In much the same way as other online stores, customers join the website and can then access an array of information on products, pricing and availability. Orders are placed and paid for through the site.

There are more than 100 brands of projector on the market. Some of these brands carry more than 100 models, so we’re taking about a serious variety of lamps, most of which are carried by Just Lamps.

Central to the company’s philosophy is a belief that it provides a service rather than simply a product. Greg says the key is to serve customers from the moment of purchase right through to delivery of the lamp.

The site essentially acts as an intermediary between manufacturers and trade customers.

“We are a customer of all these big brands – Panasonic, Sanyo, and so on – and we have direct accounts with them.

“They would normally have a distributor who handles a huge range of their products. We set up outside that model because we are a specialist company – we buy from them and on-sell.

“We’re positioned as a distributor, and by and large the manufacturers like what we do, because we specialise in a particular product and are consequently helping them.

“We’re linking, say, a Panasonic lamp to a Panasonic customer quicker than through any other distribution channel.”

Trade customers, including installers, systems integrators and lighting specialists, typically sell to end-users, and so the distribution chain continues.

With such a huge variety of lamps on offer, the commitment to inventory is substantial, to say the least, and it’s another important factor in the success of Just Lamps.

“We have made a huge commitment to holding stock and housing a large amount of inventory. After all, when someone needs a lamp they need it quickly, as they want to get it to their customer as fast as possible.”

A sound understanding of market trends enables the company to ‘profile’ demand and have the right quantities in stock.

When it comes to price, Just Lamps buys in bulk, thereby keeping prices under control.

“We can buy in large batches so we do consider ourselves very competitive on price. However, our major strength is the fact that we hold all the brands.

“In most cases even the largest distributor carries only a few brands – or they might specialise in one or two. They also usually hold a wide range of product, whereas we’re only talking about lamps.”

And a lot of lamps at that.