Benchmarking for Scientific Suppliers
Fisher Scientific, VWR and Sigma-Aldrich (now MilliporeSigma) are the three commonly used suppliers to scientific research labs. Researchers will often compare the prices between these brands while making their purchasing decisions. All of these companies offer unique products, but many are essentially commodities. For commodity items, pricing can be a major factorin deciding who to buy from although quality and lead time should also be considerations.
At Lab Spend, we’re focused on helping researchers and procurement departments make informed purchasing decisions. However, let’s for a moment view the marketplace from a supplier perspective.
What companies are researchers buying from?
Fisher Scientific, VWR and MilliporeSigma comprise the majority of sales so we will be focusing on them in this post. All three major suppliers have extensive catalogs and therefore are able to offer many products that labs are looking to purchase.
Next, let’s look at what researchers are buying at a Midwest university. For the past four years, Fisher Scientific has had and continues to hold the largest sales volume as shown by the pie charts below:
Let’s next take a look at the past four years of sales to see if there’s variation. Fisher Scientific has had the majority of sales for the past four years, but it did decline in 2018. This was due to an increase in sales by VWR, which has tripled in the past two years. MilliporeSigma has remained consistent over the four year period.
What are the top selling items?
Let’s next look at what are the items that are driving the revenue leaving out those that are not accurately cataloged or a detailed item description was lacking. The most popular item for the past four years is gloves comprising 21% of all sales. It’s interesting to note that Fisher Scientific and VWR have almost equal share with Fisher having the slight majority at 51%. For Fisher Scientific, the top selling glove and product is Kimberly Clark Lavender™ Nitrile Exam Gloves at $145 per a case.
The next significant type of products generating sales were solvents followed by 2018 pricing.
| Supplier | Solvent | Catalog Number | Size | Pack | Price |
| Fisher | Acetone | A18-200 | 200L | EA | $562.78 |
| Fisher | Methylene Chloride | D37-20 | 20L | EA | $112.79 |
| Fisher | Acetonitrile | A998-4 | 4L | CS | $210.24 |
| Fisher | Hexanes | H292-20 | 20L | EA | $52.17 |
The top selling product from VWR was also gloves with their private label Soft Nitrile Examination Gloves catalog number 89038-270 for $48.95 per a case and related depending on the size. Next for VWR was also solvents, Acetonitrile, EM-AX0145-1, CS with that varied around $200, N,N-Dimethylformamide, BDH1117-4LG, CS for $319.22.
The best sellers for MilliporeSigma were Amicon filters, Ultra-0.5 Centrifugal Filter Unit catalog numbers UFC500396, UFC900324 and UFC901024 comprised about 16% of their total yearly sales. Amicon filters are made by MilliporeSigma, but Fisher Scientific offered them at a better price. We work with labs helping them comparison shop and this just another example to keep an eye out, just because you are ordering from the manufacturer you can still be overpaying. The number of unique catalog numbers sold from Fisher Scientific, VWR and MilliporeSigma were about 2500, 350 and 500 respectively. We found it interesting that VWR had about double the sales as MilliporeSigma spread over fewer items.
Who is offering a better price for the exact same item?
In 2018, researchers bought item 431161 from Corning, Disposable Sterile Bottle-Top Filters with 0.22µm Membrane and Corning item 95301, Melting Point Capillaries.
| Supplier | Cat. Number | Price | Pack | Manuf. | Man. Cat. Number |
| VWR | 29442-952 | $209.35 | CS | Corning | 431161 |
| Fisher | 09-761-126 | $258.02 | CS | Corning | 431161 |
| VWR | 32311-080 | $203.99 | CS | Corning | 95301 |
| Fisher | 08-261-2A | $181.20 | CS | Corning | 95301 |
Despite being better priced VWR was outsold by Fisher for item 431161. As a note, Corning item 431161 is priced reasonably, but item 95301 could be better based on our analysis of other universities and companies.
Let’s look at 2019 prices. Fisher Scientific and VWR both offer Kimberly Clark item 34155 (Fisher Catalog number 06666A and VWR catalog number 21905-026 by the case. Fisher Scientific is offering it for $143.20 while VWR offers it at $112.06, which represents about a 28% savings for the exact same item. For the past fours years, VWR has been better priced, but Fisher has sold about 6x the amount of product. For an actionable step, VWR should consider letting more labs know about this item since it is commonly used.
To address the initial question, you need to compare at the item level for savings. As the example shows, Fisher Scientific and VWR both offer Corning products and depending on the item have a better price.
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