Are Independent Industrial Distributors Helping Amazon to Succeed?

By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman

I read a recent survey in Industrial Distribution magazine that stated distributors’ biggest concern now is dealing with Amazon. Distributors and wholesalers overwhelmingly regard Amazon Business as their biggest threat, dwarfing other concerns. That’s one of the findings Unilog released recently, after surveying 244 manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers.

Surprisingly, 52 percent of those same survey respondents admit they don’t have a strategy for competing with Amazon Business. And, 43 percent of manufacturers surveyed said they sell direct on Amazon Business, often bypassing their traditional distribution channel.

I wrote a post in 2015 regarding this subject on another survey from Industrial Distribution magazine. Back then, Amazon was convincing distributors to join their third party selling agreement and many jumped on board.

Today it’s hard to compete toe-to-toe with Amazon on product purchases. But distributors sell themselves short. Distributors have the brick-and-mortar stores right in their customers’ backyards. They have the relationships with the customers. Distributors have the technical knowledge to help their customers work through application issues.

Here’s a link to the 2015 post:

http://www.sonnhalter.com/2015/02/24/are-independent-industrial-distributors-helping-amazon-to-succeed/

 

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