The Impact of The Maker Movement on Distributors

Published on: 14/06/2017

Want to turn your idea in to reality? Learn more about the maker movement in our latest article 

The Maker Movement

Today, the maker movement in electronics is more prominent than ever before, with a convergence of independent inventors, designers and tinkerers all exploring bringing their “big idea” to life.

With the growth of the maker movement, through platforms and crowd funding sites such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter, more makers are now able to create products and take them to production.

Makers are searching for distributors to partner with, not just for components but for their design and industry knowledge too. Distributors are tweaking their business models to better the service the requirements of makers because they understand it is an important platform for future products. Once the product has been developed, distributors often continue to supply parts for the larger roll-outs.

Makers like to team up with distributors that specialise in selling small-medium volumes of parts because of their large array of benefits. Smaller sized distributors encompass projects of all sizes, from one-offs to large scale productions, they take time to understand their customers and can offer the best prices on parts because they have supported pricing by some of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers. They can guarantee shorter lead times and one-to-one account management, smaller distributors are enthusiastic and passionate about new projects no matter what size they are, and look to build long-lasting relationships with their customers.

GD Rectifiers is a leading distributor of electronic components based in the UK. They are a small-medium sized distributor that specialises in working with some of the world’s most pioneering projects which revolutionise the future of the semiconductor industry.

Many makers are in fact engineers who tend to have day jobs working at electronics OEMs, they approach distributors because they have an idea for a new product, one that is totally unimaginable to the OEM and they challenge themselves to develop it. Not all of them wish to build in large volumes and bring the product to market, instead they do it as more of a hobby or a personal challenge.

In our experience, most of the makers are degreed engineers, either software or hardware engineers and studied electronics, software or programming in education.

GD Rectifiers boosts a highly experienced tech support team that is knowledgeable about both the parts and the platforms that the makers need. They work directly with the makers on a 360 design process to ensure the design is created to the desired spec, provides prototypes and then tests and brings the product to life.

Whether it is IoT, wearable devices or consumer products, it is thought that the maker movement will continue to grow now it is easier today than ever for a lone individual, a maker who has an idea, to commercialise it. This also results in more customers and sales for distributors whilst they play an integral role helping makers launch their ideas.

GD Rectifiers are an ISO 9001:2008 registered company that design and develop bespoke power semiconductor parts and assemblies to control voltage, current and frequency for international industrial markets.

For further information or to discuss your next project, please call: 01444 243 452 or email: [email protected].