Retailers Are Eyeing Distribution Verticals: What This Means for You

Not only are wholesale giants expanding all over the country, but retailers like Amazon and Home Depot have set their sights on growing into wholesale distribution verticals as well.

If you aren’t competing with deep-pocket retailers yet, brace yourself—you could be soon, according to a recent article in Distribution Strategy Group: “Home Depot’s SRS Acquisition a Wake-Up Call for Distributors: Big Retailers Are Coming for Your Business”. The story levels a strong warning to wholesale distributors, predicting they will likely feel pressure from retail heavy hitters including Home Depot, Lowe’s, Amazon, and Walmart.

New Competition in Wholesale Distribution

So, what’s got these big-box stores so fired up about wholesale distribution? In a nutshell: growth. They have investors to please, and they see huge revenue potential in B2B sales. According to the article’s author, “Those retailers have plenty of cash, can offer convenient fulfillment through their many stores and distribution centers, and are leaders in ecommerce and mobile technology.”

Two striking examples described in the story include Home Depot’s 2024 acquisition of SRS Distribution Inc. plus the astronomical growth of Amazon Business, whose sales in 2023 were already double those of Grainger Industrial Supply (one of the nation’s largest distributors).

If you’re in distribution, you’re probably wondering how in the world you’ll stay competitive against these new players who are set to shake up the industry.

Here’s the good news: you don’t need a giant budget to match these behemoths.

Stellar eCommerce Levels the Playing Field

If your ecommerce website design and functionality are on par with your strongest competitors, then the size of your company is irrelevant. But what about the ecommerce price tag? Dealing with product data in wholesale distribution has historically been so complex and costly that many businesses steered clear of anything more advanced than posting PDF catalogs on their websites.

Fortunately, cloud-powered data exchange is changing the paradigm. In fact, the Anarus Grand Anar data exchange network and Stellar eCommerce are improving nearly everything about the way manufacturers and distributors share, manage, and track product information in the market. Additionally, Stellar eCommerce is a subscription service that offers affordable entry to wholesale distributors of all sizes.

Affordable Ecommerce Subscriptions

With Stellar eCommerce, you can compete with the big guys without breaking the bank. Starting at just $500 per month, Stellar eCommerce subscriptions allow you to serve up always-current and feature-rich product content without maintaining your own product database server. That means you can be “open for business” whenever it’s most convenient for your customers and sell more products without doing more work.

Stellar eCommerce isn’t just another B2B ecommerce platform. It was purpose-built to drive innovation and enormous ROI possibilities in wholesale distribution. Request a personalized demo today and see for yourself or call us directly at 612-255-3712 to learn more.