Wholesale distributors keep the economy going, buying large quantities of products from manufacturers, then storing and distributing to companies that sell those products to consumers. They’re vital intermediaries in the global supply chain. But they’re an industry undergoing profound disruption, as illustrated by the wholesale distribution trends for 2025.
Increased competition, the growth of e-commerce, rising customer expectations, and new technologies have put pressure on distributors to transform the way they operate in order to remain competitive.
As they look for ways to grow business and drive revenue, they’ll focus on integrating artificial intelligence, ramping up digitalization, and improving customer experience.
Wholesale distribution trends 2025
The pressure on distributors to transform intensified during the pandemic and hasn’t let up. Those that hadn’t already adapted to e-commerce found themselves catching up while everyone focused on bolstering their supply chains.
Now, distributors are adjusting to the new digital reality as they zero in on ways to drive sustained growth.
Wholesale distributor executives ranked revenue growth and increased market share as their top business objectives, according to an Oxford Economics-SAP survey.
Here are the top trends helping distributors reach their growth goals in 2025:
- Improving operational efficiency with AI: Distributors will implement artificial intelligence to improve inventory management, boost personalization, and optimize forecasting.
- Getting better at change management: Digital transformation can’t succeed without strong change management processes. Distributors will make this a priority in 2025.
- Taking B2B commerce to the next level: Distributors will improve B2B commerce with better personalization and convenience, taking a page from the B2C world
- Services-led innovation: With competition on the rise, wholesale distributors will tap advanced tech like AI to create unique new services in order to stand out.
- Ramping up training for talent retention: Attracting and keeping skilled workers will be a top industry trend with a focus on improving employee development.
1. Integrating AI for better efficiency + margins
In 2025, artificial intelligence will move from the planning stages to implementation in wholesale distribution.
Distributors are moving quickly toward AI, as 54.8% of midmarket companies list adopting business AI applications and 53.3% cite adopting generative AI as high priorities, according to SAP research.
AI promises to boost profit margins and make distributors more competitive. Achieving these goals requires strategic use of the technology to improve business processes. None of this happens in a vacuum: employees must also adapt to the efficiencies of AI and rely on them alongside their ingrained expertise.
AI co-pilots are already in use within many leading companies, but it’s time to move beyond beta testing and trials and make AI part of everyday workflows.
This is an especially important 2025 wholesale distribution trend because the abilities and use cases for AI are spot-on for the goals that many wholesalers are working toward. For example, AI can help distributors optimize inventory, increase personalization, and improve forecasting and pricing.
AI tools also boost sales by recommending next actions, taking on repetitive work, and making product recommendations. That gives the sales team more time to focus on relationship building and other human-centric activities.
Realizing the full benefits of AI, however, will take a considerable amount of data, testing, reskilling, and overall company transformation.
2. Distributors focus on change management
In 2025, distributors will prioritize change management as they work to transform their business. This is an area where many have a lot of room to improve.
An SAP survey of midsize companies found that 32% of distributors say employees’ and/or management’s resistance to change were some of the most significant internal challenges to their growth priorities.
While it’s great to introduce new software to improve efficiency or AI initiatives to automate repetitive tasks, these initiatives will fall flat without a change management strategy and collaboration with the IT department.
Digital transformation in particular relies heavily on organizational change management to succeed. If a distributor captures tons of data to feed into new technology systems designed to help the company gain a new competitive advantage, all involved teams need to buy into the idea and method of transformation to get the best results.
However, most midsize wholesale distributors are still working on digital transformation: 62% haven’t started or are in early stages according to a 2023 IDC report.
3. Distributor trend: Supercharging B2B commerce in 2025
With wholesale distributors acting as the conduit between manufacturers and consumers, they have the opportunity to rethink how B2B commerce works. They can create personalization plans based on buying and interest data to fully cater their commerce experience to what each individual customer might be seeking based on past behavior.
A one-size-fits-all experience will no longer cut it. Personalizing each touchpoint in the B2B buying process is the only way to stand out from the competition.
According to Boston Consulting Group, $2 trillion in revenue will shift to companies that create personalized customer experiences over the next five years.
Personalization can also help with promotions to present customers with the offers that will entice them most and reduce churn. When customer journeys are individualized with the help of AI, distributors can analyze more data faster and automatically generate customized ideas to help customers increase order volume.
Another way to improve the B2B commerce experience is to make sure that customers have access to all relevant and accurate product information, stock, and pricing for the products they’re interested in across all sales channels.
Take notes from the B2C commerce world: provide the quick checkout, personalized suggestions, and bundling offers that customers have become used to as consumers. Apply these strategies to the intricate B2B buying cycle to see a lift in conversion rates and customer engagement.
4. Wholesale distributors lead with new services
Forty-seven percent of wholesale distributors in the midmarket segment reported that creating new business models was a high priority when transforming with AI, according to SAP research. So the clock is ticking to get these implemented faster than the competition.
With new players entering the market, wholesalers have to find ways to rise above the competition and offer unique value. With the help of AI and other advanced technologies, distributors can break the mold and offer everything-as-a-service. This unique approach to sales models can help avoid commoditization that previously entered companies in a costly race to the bottom.
In 2025, wholesalers that offer flexibility and a mix of high-quality products that customers expect with novel value-added services to catch their interest, can expand value propositions alongside revenue. But distributors need a strong digital foundation to accomplish this, so businesses must accelerate digital transformation.
The Oxford Economics study found that distributors are focused on adding a variety of new services to their business:
- Additional expert services (56.6%)
- Value-added services that transform products (53%)
- Financial services (53%)
- Supply chain related value-added services (47%)
- Expanded product catalog (31%)
5. Training trends up to retain talent
As the labor market fluctuates, wholesale distributors must focus on retaining top talent and bringing on staff that wants to lean into the digital future. The concept of climbing the corporate ladder and paying dues for many years in the warehouse before being able to move up is antiquated.
In January 2024, the median tenure for wage and salary workers fell to 3.9 years, down from 4.1 years in 2022, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Older workers ages 45 to 54 ten to stay with an employer longer (median 7 years), but the median tenure for younger workers ages 25-24 is only 2.7 years.
Considering the costs of replacing workers and competition for talent, distributors need to step up employee training and development in 2025.
When all employees have access to new training modules and have opportunity to voice their ideas, distributors can identify employees for advancement into leadership roles and increase their impact in the company.
These training programs should be experiential in nature and feature the latest AI tools so that employees can drive efficiency and generate fresh ideas. Learning new skills helps staff keep up with the changing digital economy and could also encourage retention. And by advertising this focus on learning and development, distributors can attract the best talent.
Wholesale distribution in 2025 and beyond
Looking ahead, there are a plenty of opportunities for growth in the industry. But success depends on each distributor’s ability to adapt to new technologies, changing customer preferences, and fluctuating markets.
With strategic use of AI and by leveraging analytics and cloud technologies, distributors can gain the agility required to keep up with global trends and shifting B2B buyer behavior. By going beyond products and innovating with new services, they can drive growth and stand out against the competition.
