Just as the distribution industry is reaching a tipping point where most companies can sell online, it looks like having a company-specific website isn’t good enough anymore – no matter how good it is. You also need a marketplace strategy.

Marketplaces offer enormous product range from many suppliers while allowing customers to process transactions in one place. In B2B, Amazon Business is growing at a ferocious rate, with close to 350 million active SKUs, and some analysts think that Amazon Business is going to hit more than $200 billion in gross merchandise revenue by 2029. Amazon is the most obvious example of marketplaces that carry B2B SKUs, but you can find them on Google Shopping, Walmart.com, Alibaba, eBay Business & Industrial, Zoro and other websites, too.

These are some of the largest, most well-capitalized, aggressive and sophisticated companies in the world — and they’re coming after distributors’ customers.

We’re not predicting that distributors are going to go out of business as a result, but these new rivals are going to take major market share. We discussed why distributors need a marketplace strategy now to stay competitive.

With this encroachment into their back yards, distributors must figure out how to compete. Here are three ways to do that:

You must go digital. Distributors need a world-class digital presence, period. 

Produce an outstanding services menu. Consider the value you can add as a distributor outside the items you sell. 

Build a marketplace strategy.  You can’t not respond to what’s going on with marketplaces today. Take some time to consider how you want to respond, then form a plan and execute it.

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