Distributor Benchmarking Must Read | The State Of Innovation 2026 90 • SEPTEMBER 2026 • TABLE 1: How many suppliers provide real-time inventory feeds to your ERP or Order Management System? More than 10 Suppliers 8-10 Suppliers 4-7 Suppliers 1-3 Suppliers None Distributors $100M+ 75% 0% 0% 6% 19% Distributors $25M-$100M 78% 8% 0% 0% 14% Distributors $10M-$25M 84% 0% 4% 4% 8% Distributors $3M-$10M 68% 12% 4% 0% 16% Distributors Under $3M 40% 0% 10% 10% 40% Mitch Freed, CEO of Genumark, PPAI 100’s No. 30 distributor, is surprised by how consistent the pain points are across the branded merchandise industry. “Whether you’re a $3 million shop or a $500 million one, the same issue keeps coming up: supplier data that doesn’t translate cleanly,” Freed says. “At Genumark, we’ve built a lot of our own infrastructure specifically to solve that problem, so seeing it validated at every sized tier tells me it’s not a ‘smaller distributor’ problem, it’s an industry problem.” TABLE 2: Do you offer a secure online payment portal for customers to pay bills securely? Yes No Distributors $100M+ 100% 0% Distributors $25M-$100M 92% 8% Distributors $10M-$25M 100% 0% Distributors $3M-$10M 96% 4% Distributors Under $3M 77% 23% The data indicate that most distributors offer online payment portals, which empower customers with the flexibility to select and pay invoices on their terms while significantly reducing the burden of manual reconciliation and data entry for their teams. “At Genumark, we’ve built a lot of our own infrastructure specifically to solve that problem, so seeing it validated at every sized tier tells me it’s not a ‘smaller distributor’ problem, it’s an industry problem.” —MITCH FREED, GENUMARK
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