Dr. Reichelt, your company has a very extensive product range. Where are you connected to the manufacturing industry and mechanical engineering?

That's right, we have a broad product range. Reichelt Chemietechnik 's product portfolio comprises 80,000 items, which are divided into the Thomafluid, Thomapor, Thomaplast and Thomadrive product groups. The focus is on the Thomafluid product group with the product segments hoses, hose connectors, taps, solenoid valves, flow meters and pumps.

Another important product area is the Thomaplast product group, which presents films and sheets made of elastomers and plastics alongside O-rings made of FDA-compliant elastomers as well as screws, spacers and washers made of plastics and fluoroplastics.

Thomadrive stands for the drive technology product group; roller chains, sprockets, toothed belts, gear racks as well as clamping sets and shaft joints are available here. The Thomapor product group stands for the product segments membrane filtration and dialysis, screen mesh and sintered materials as tubes and plates.

The Thomafluid, Thomaplast and Thomadrive product ranges in particular are considered standard products for mechanical and chemical engineering. The Thomapor product group, on the other hand, is reserved for laboratory technology, specifically for the biotechnology, pharmaceutical technology and food technology segments.

Are standard products from your range more in demand in this sector or do you also offer customized products?

Our company specializes in the sale of standard products, especially for the fields of mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, process technology, pharmaceutical technology and food technology. Of course, we also serve customers who require FDA-compliant hoses in unusual dimensions and special Shore hardnesses. In these cases, special batches are produced that are backed up by annual orders.

You offer your customers manuals that provide an overview of your products.

Our manuals are an important component of our sales philosophy. We present our range in 13 manuals, which are published annually in a print run of 3.2 million copies. We organize the distribution of the manuals by inserting them into 14 well-known trade journals every month. Of course, we have also thought about our foreign business partners. The manuals are available in a further ten languages and can also be downloaded from our website.

Our customers appreciate our delivery service, because our corporate philosophy is "selling small quantities" just in time. In concrete terms, we sell our customers exactly what they need, as reflected in our packaging units. The chemist in the laboratory, for example, who needs silicone tubing, I.D. 0.3 mm and A.D. 0.5 mm, can obtain this unit in either 5 or 15 m; we also keep these unusual dimensions in stock and are always ready to deliver. Normally, such dimensions would have to be specially manufactured, which would entail production units of at least 500 m.

Is your business also changing as a result of digitalization in the industry? And if so, what are these changes?

Our initial business idea of only selling our products via catalogs and manuals is no longer feasible in today's world. We secure our sales through a marketing mix of print advertising and Internet advertising.

Our online store is an important component of our sales concept. Here we present all 80,000 items that can be ordered and are available immediately via our store. The presence of our website reflects the high number of visitors. Around 34,500 interested parties visit our website every month.

Digital communication is more important today than ever before. We realize this by adding a blog to our website. Here we publish a neutral specialist article every week on a wide range of topics relating to laboratory technology, pharmaceutical technology and chemical technology. The number of visitors to our blog is 9000 per month. A pleasing development.

Another component of our digital communication will be social media. We are currently in the process of developing a concept using the new marketplaces/new media such as Facebook, Linkedin, Xing and, of course, Google. We are convinced that this is the future, but that print will never disappear, because trade journals are part of the information culture in Germany.