Digital share scales with size — and a $10B merger just raised the bar

New survey data from Distribution Strategy Group, drawn from more than 100 wholesale brands, puts hard numbers on a pattern distributors feel but rarely measure: ecommerce's share of digitally captured orders rises steadily with company size. For wholesalers under $5 million in revenue, buyers place 34% of digital orders through ecommerce; that climbs to 40.7% in the $5–15 million tier and reaches 63.5% at the largest firms, where the sales rep writes just over a third. The channel is also winning new business on its own — about a quarter of buyers at the smallest wholesalers now order exclusively through the website, and 44% of new online buyers there place their first order within 30 days.

Two of the largest distributors of janitorial-sanitation supplies, foodservice products, and industrial packaging — Imperial Dade and BradyPLUS — completed their merger in March and have since unified under a single brand, Imperial Brady. The combination pairs the second- and third-ranked players in the category (behind long-time leader Uline) into a North American platform with more than $10 billion in annual revenue and over 13,000 employees serving restaurants, healthcare facilities, schools, and building-maintenance providers.

The spread between scaled and sub-scaled purchasing economics has driven consolidation in JanSan and foodservice distribution for a decade, and this deal widens it. Backed by private-equity capital and built through a long string of bolt-on acquisitions, Imperial Brady now offers national scale and local service depth at the same time — a combination that narrows the traditional advantage of smaller regional operators, who have historically competed on proximity and relationships.

Imperial Brady says it will run a localized service model supported by broader scale, expanded product range, and enhanced digital capabilities. That's the real test of the merger's value: unifying more than 305 combined distribution points under one brand and one platform while preserving the customer relationships that drove both companies' growth. It's the same challenge every consolidating distributor faces — turning acquired branches into a single digital ordering experience with consistent pricing, inventory, and account data, rather than a patchwork of systems behind one logo.