Distributor consolidation is accelerating.
In just the past few months:
Even niche markets like fasteners are drawing investment-firm interest, with San Diego–based distributors being folded into larger platforms.
These deals reflect a clear trend: investors and strategic buyers see distribution as fragmented, ripe for consolidation, and critical in the current supply chain environment.
But here’s the risk: what often undermines post-deal success isn’t the logic of the acquisition, but the tech stack. Each acquired business arrives with its own ERP, eCommerce portal, and pricing rules. Instead of synergies, distributors inherit duplicated systems, disconnected data, and frustrated customers.
Surveys already show the cracks: 65% of B2B executives believe their online commerce is “broken” due to poor product data management, and 68% of buyers are discouraged from ordering online because of errors (DistributionStrategy). Scale through acquisition magnifies these weaknesses rather than fixing them.
That’s why distributors looking to protect margins and retain customers after M&A need more than bigger balance sheets. They need unified commerce, which is a way to integrate pricing, catalogs, order management, and visibility across the enterprise.
Consolidation is no longer the exception, but the strategy. Packaging, PPE, fasteners, and industrial distributors are being rolled into larger platforms at record pace. On paper, the logic is sound: more scale, more leverage with suppliers, and more share of wallet.
Every distributor acquisition multiplies the tech stack: more ERPs, more portals, more product databases, and overlapping catalogs and customer workflows.
Instead of synergy, companies inherit duplicate tech, conflicting data, and teams stuck reconciling systems. Deals promise growth, but if the digital backbone can’t keep up, value erodes before integration is complete.
The recent moves underline the pressure.
When Agilis (a B2B digital commerce provider for chemicals) and Elemica (a supply chain operating network) partnered to accelerate deployments, it was a signal that investors now see tech enablement as central to deal success. Similarly, EVI Industries, an acquisitive distributor in laundry and cleaning equipment, publicly tied its acquisition strategy to a full-scale tech overhaul, an admission that consolidation without modernization is a dead end.
From a customer’s perspective, M&A should deliver better service. What it often delivers instead is confusion.
Order portals list products that can’t be fulfilled. Prices quoted online don’t match invoices. Delivery promises slip because inventory data is fragmented across systems. Instead of experiencing scale benefits, customers encounter errors that erode trust.
Surveys confirm this reality: two-thirds of B2B buyers say order errors discourage them from ordering online, and one in three digital orders contains a mistake, from wrong pricing to incorrect delivery dates. Annually, distributors are estimated to lose ~5% of their revenues due to manual quoting. In a consolidation-driven market, these errors multiply. Each acquired entity brings its own quirks, pricing rules, and catalog structures. Without a unified layer, what buyers experience is a patchwork of inconsistencies.
Catalog and product data are often underestimated in M&A integration. It is one of the least visible, but most damaging fractures in the tech stack. Every deal adds a new set of SKUs, attributes, and supplier data feeds. Unless unified quickly, this creates downstream friction that frustrates buyers and sales teams alike.
Executives admit the scale of the problem: nearly all B2B leaders acknowledge they faced major product data challenges in the past year. Many reported that finding up-to-date product information is a top challenge, and point to inaccurate pricing or stock levels as persistent pain points.
Post-acquisition, these challenges double. Instead of one catalog with outdated specs, you now have three or four. Instead of one set of rules for pricing and availability, you inherit multiple.
The result is that what should be a stronger portfolio becomes a liability; a source of errors, missed sales, and customer churn.
M&A is supposed to create efficiencies and expand margins. But in today’s environment of tariffs and rising supply chain costs, the opposite often happens if systems aren’t unified.
ERP systems may record landed costs in real time, but if storefronts and price lists lag by even a week, distributors ship at outdated prices and eat the loss. A 3 – 5% duty hike, passed through late, can erase an entire quarter’s profit. Seamless B2B eCommerce ERP integration is required forthose updates to reach customer-facing systems in time, and avoid creating costly mismatches between real costs and catalog pricing.
This isn’t hypothetical. Global supply chain costs are projected to rise 7% above inflation by the end of 2025, up sharply from 2% just last year. Many distributors who front-loaded inventories early in the year are now restocking at higher prices, compounding the tariff effect. Without unified ERP-to-catalog sync and governed pricing rules, margin leakage isn’t an integration hiccup, but systemic.
Acquisitions don’t fail because of deal logic. They fail because the underlying systems don’t connect. The solution isn’t more bolt-ons or manual workarounds, but unified commerce.
Unified commerce creates the foundation for growth after consolidation by:
For distributors navigating acquisitions, this shift is decisive. It transforms post-deal chaos into a coherent platform that supports scale.
Consolidation leaves distributors juggling duplicate tech stacks. The need of the hour is to unify those systems on a single backbone. That’s exactly where ewiz commerce stands apart.
Built for the complexity of B2B distribution, and backed by 25 years of experience, ewiz combines eCommerce depth with ERP strength:
M&A will continue in distribution. Tariffs, supply chain shocks, and investor capital all but guarantee it. But deal logic won’t save distributors whose systems are misaligned.
The winners won’t just be those who buy the most. They’ll be those who integrate the best; who deliver consistency, transparency, and speed across every acquired entity.
Unified commerce stabilizes pricing and strengthens the entire supply chain. Digital cohesion in modern B2B supply chains can be brought about with eCommerce, bringing visibility and resilience across sourcing, inventory, and fulfillment. And ewiz commerce is how distributors can operationalize it today.
👉 Explore how ewiz commerce helps distributors unify commerce after M&A.
M&A Moves Put Tech Stacks Under Pressure
