RESTON, Va. — “Distributors are resilient and innovative,” says Kimberly Bolin, president and CEO of the Convenience Distribution Association (CDA) and the Distributors Education Foundation, Reston, Va.
At the group’s September Business Exchange in Chicago, key stakeholders in the channel addressed the recent challenges and offered solutions to help meet consumer expectations.
Bolin offered insights to CSP from the association perspective on the state of convenience-store distribution:
Q: Retailers and wholesalers are still dealing with supply-chain challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. How has the convenience-store distribution industry overcome these challenges?
A: Supply-chain challenges are ongoing. Businesses are dealing with them as best they can. Trading partners are getting creative through innovation, and communication is a must.
Related: The State of Distribution
Q: How has the labor market changed over the past year?
A: The labor market is still tight. Distributors are being inventive in ways to attract, train and retain quality associates. They are addressing it in a variety of ways such as paying higher wages, overstaffing if possible and offering signing bonuses and incentives so employees can earn additional dollars for performance. Distributors operate on razor-thin margins. It’s hard for these additional expenses not to impact the bottom line.
Q: Are we finally in the new normal when it comes to c-store distribution, or is the business still changing due to worldwide events, such as recovering from the pandemic?
A: Business is still changing and looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. There has been a lot of adapting to the environment with buyers having to take time to run down orders to see what’s coming in and what isn’t. Manufacturers are overwhelmed and are working with distributors to offer options like ordering at different time periods. All these factors make it difficult to keep inventory balanced.
Click here to view CSP’s 2022 Distributor 15 list of the largest distributors to convenience stores.