John Tisera, president/CEO of Johnstone Supply, joined Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein in this episode to talk about how the distributor has built and
Ian Heller
Ian Heller is the Founder and Chief Strategist for Distribution Strategy Group. He has more than 30 years of experience executing marketing and e-business strategy in the wholesale distribution industry, starting as a truck unloader at a Grainger branch while in college. He’s since held executive roles at GE Capital, Corporate Express, Newark Electronics and HD Supply. Ian has written and spoken extensively on the impact of digital disruption on distributors, and would love to start that conversation with you, your team or group. Reach out today at iheller@distributionstrategy.com.
Articles by Ian Heller
If you aren’t building high-tech platforms that make it hyper-efficient for your customers to execute simple transactions, you’re losing the game. But simply adopting
Independent alternatives to third-party marketplaces like Amazon are emerging, and some distributors have found success selling through them. This has many wondering if they
Learn why loyalty is a powerful emotion and how to leverage it in B2B, best practices in designing loyalty and incentive programs, and how
Home Depot pays a 25% premium for an enterprise value of $8 billion to reacquire HD Supply, putting branch-based distributors square in the middle
While offering a transactional website has become a must-have in today’s environment, enhancing your shopping functionality has become even more critical to meeting customer
John Caplan talks about how Alibaba’s customer-focused business model may be a better digital marketplace for U.S. distributors than Amazon Business.
Everyone recognizes the effects of emerging technologies, as well as well-capitalized competitors, on the channel and on their businesses.
Wholesale Change hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein dig into public distributors’ earnings reports from across segments to bring you insights into how your
In this episode Ian Heller welcomed Alibaba’s John Caplan to the Wholesale Change Show to discuss Alibaba’s capabilities and the marketplace’s long-term plans.
Learn how Amazon uses AI and how distributors can fend off this B2B juggernaut with their own strategy around product recommendations, search relevancy and
Successful ecommerce in B2B is wildly more complex than in retail. Multiple users, workflows, e-procurement, punchout, email-to-order conversion and many more challenges make it
In this episode we explain why the old assumption that distributors can be “High Tech” or “High Touch” is a destructive myth.
This post summarizes some of the key findings in the second report based on our research for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors into how
Returned goods can hurt productivity, reduce profitability, and damage customer and supplier relationships. No wonder most distributors focus on reducing them – but they
There is a way to get over the widely recognized “small-order” issue in distribution in a truly actionable way. Establishing and monitoring Minimum Order
Many distributors have spent time creating a value proposition their companies rally around, but salespeople often stumble when it comes time to sell that
If you hide so well – in your office or among your own employees – that your employees can’t recognize you, then you are
Distributors hate returns. In addition to refunding the sale, they often have to liquidate the product and deal with the administrative hassles ranging from
Distributors know that any digital initiative requires a great product database. Even after all these years, defining the requirements, nailing down the process, choosing