The online thing is huge at my work. We have 486,000 suppliers around the world.
Yes, half a million suppliers. Around the world. That supply 540 branches (of our parent company and various subsidiaries we own) in north america. I can and have sourced parts europe, asia and the middle east. We honestly can't know everything. We just can't. With half a million suppliers you can't possibly know all their product lines and offerings. So quite often I will get a call from a customer, looking for something from a specific supplier I've never heard of before. So I will say "I've never heard of them but I can try and source it" And I usually get a snark "WELL they list you as a distributor" Then I kindly explain that with 486,000 suppliers around the world, I can't quite possibly know every supplier we have. This usually makes them understand the depth of my job and shuts them up. Not to mention that being in Canada, just because our American side is a distributor. Doesn't mean our Canadian side is. There are lots of contracts done by region/country that prevent that sort of thing. It's a highly complex world that the customer really doesn't know about or understand unless they work with us a lot, or have worked in this industry in the past.