SPI Supplies® Brand Products for Microscopy and Microanalysis
Specializing in all your microscopy, microanalysis, and histology needs since 1973!
Shortly after the formation of Structure Probe, Inc. in April, 1970, the SPI Supplies Division
as formed in 1973. We published our first catalog in 1976 and today, SPI Supplies
is one of the several leading firms, on a
world-wide basis, manufacturing and distributing sample preparation equipment
and consumable supply items for scanning (SEM) and transmission
(TEM) electron and light (LM) microscopy
laboratories. In the past few years, SPI Supplies has emerged as a
leader in the supplying of scanning probe and confocal microscopy
laboratories of their various needs for consumables and accessories.
Since you are yourself now accessing the SPI Supplies website, you can
understand well why we are often referred to as the "Amazon.com of the
microscopy and microanalysis world."
SPI Supplies is unique in the industry of firms offering sample preparation
equipment and consumable supplies. Perhaps the most important is that
contained within or organization is the laboratory of Structure Probe, Inc.,
an independent laboratory specializing in electron microscopy.
It is indeed
a very very busy commercial laboratory that has under one roof two state of
the art SEMs, a TEM, full LM capabilities. We also have all of the
important ancillary equipment such as EDS, ion milling, vacuum evaporation,
plasma etching and cleaning, so whatever difficulties a customer might be
experiencing, we are able to duplicate the problem and suggest solutions.
Additionally all incoming raw materials can be checked and qualities
verified on a regular basis. This unique in-house capability is especially
important in terms of assessing the quality of the
SPI Supplies brand of custom coated grids
(e. g. Formvar coated, carbon coated, SiO2 coated, etc),
because we do the QC in our own laboratory, the customer is not doing it for
us in their own laboratory! Any experienced microscopist would immediately
understand the importance of that in-house capability. Consequently,
customers of SPI Supplies products only very very rarely are in the
situation where something has to be returned because it has fallen short of
specifications and expectations.
There are numerous other advantages that flow from having our own in-house
laboratory facilities. For example, we are routinely using the Structure
Probe laboratory equipment as part of our own manufacturing operations, such is
items for test and measurement and calibration.
Our in house equipment
is also used for the testing and acceptance of incoming raw materials that
are used in the manufacturing of SPI Supplies products. This also means
that when a customer does have a problem, such as the setting up of a
SPI manufactured sputter/carbon coater
or a plasma etcher, and they call for
assistance, they are not talking to "order takers" but they are put right
through to the person in our laboratory who is essentially doing the same
thing. They are talking to someone with their own "hands on" experience.
This high level of customer technical service even draws unsolicited raves
on microscopy industry listservers.
We believe that SPI Supplies does a higher percentage of its manufacturing
(estimated to be 70-80%) than anyone else in our segment of the microscopy
and microanalysis industry. Our customers can be confident they are dealing
directly with the manufacturer and not with just a marketing house.
SPI Supplies participates as an exhibitor and as a presenter of
scientific and technical papers at
numerous trade shows and scientific meetings
during the course of a year. Until recently, the principal
marketing tool for SPI Supplies has been a hard copy printed catalog
(SPI Supplies SourceBook™) and periodic newsletters called
SPI-Lights™. During the year, there had also been various new product
announcements and other types of mailings.
Today, SPI Supplies is "100% paperless". We have in essence become a 100%
internet company. Our customers have pushed us to do this, but they have
not had to push too hard because we ourselves could clearly see the benefits
to this new type of business model if not also new distribution channel.
For example, we can deliver to our customers, like yourself, far more
information about our products and their applications, electronically, than
we ever could in a printed form. This has also resulted in our customers
getting information instantly, and when they want to have it, not when
someone gets around to sending it to them. FOB prices are clearly displayed
and they apply to everyone, no matter where in the world a customer is
located. Furthermore, as we have developed
flat rate shipping/handling/insurance fees,
customers globally can calculate to the
penny the total cost in getting an SPI Supplies order to their door
(exclusive of local taxes). The attractiveness to customers of having this
information instantly available, and when coupled with the smoothest running
Shopping Cart in "microscopy-land" has caught even us off guard. We are
experiencing a rapidly increasing website traffic load, we have been in a
hiring mode for new employees for the past two years, but these are the
kinds of management "problems" we used to only dream about!
This also means that we are also able to serve our customer's needs for information at a far
lower cost. Every night, between the hours of 5:00 pm and 8:00 am,
Eastern Time in the USA, the hours when we would otherwise be "sleeping",
roughly 125-150 viewers, presumably customers, are accessing the SPI
Supplies website for information, and a growing percentage of them are
then placing orders on-line, using the Shopping Cart. At this point in time, we are
providing an equivalent service to what we provided four years ago, we are
providing a clearly far superior and higher value service" with "a vastly
superior service, not only relative to our previously printed catalog but
vastly superior to anyone else in our industry.
And the website approach also permits us to introduce
new products to our customers virtually the
instant they are brought to market. And we are able to offer discontinued
(or otherwise in excess) products via our busy
Factory Outlet Store.
And at times, we are able to offer special pricing via our
WWW Specials department.
As we move well into the new millennium, we are confident in
the wisdom of the strategic decisions taken several years ago to focus
on the needs of our customers, and that means focussing on the use of the
internet as the principal way we communicate with customers and vendors.
We are constantly searching for opportunities to bring you tomorrow's
products today. Stick with SPI and you can be sure you can count on
the best possible service and products of the highest quality but at
the lowest possible prices.
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Friday May 09, 2008
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