Business operations consulting for owner-led wholesale and distribution businesses doing $2M to $20M: food and beverage, industrial supply, building materials, consumer goods, medical and dental, apparel. We walk through purchasing, pricing, inventory, freight, warehouse labor, and software, then hand you the three operational problems costing you the most, with your own numbers next to each.
US merchant wholesalers of durable goods, gross margin 26.9% of sales, 2021, as published by Statista from US Census Bureau data. Everything you run the business on comes out of that 26.9 cents. Your line will differ; that is what the diagnostic is for.
These are the figures we could trace to a named survey or dataset. Where a figure is a vendor study or has no year on the page, the table says so.
| Measure | Figure | Who it covers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross margin as a share of sales, durable goods wholesale | 26.9% | US merchant wholesalers, durable goods, 2021 | Statista, from US Census Bureau data, 2021 |
| Inventory not sold in over 12 months | 12% to 30% | Multi-location hardlines wholesalers; 97% of SKUs sell ten times or less a year | HARDI, Thrive Technologies analysis, 2023 |
| Distributors who believe they miss rebates they earned | 52% | Distributors across 13 industries; 28% track rebates in Excel | Enable, State of Volume Rebates Report, via MDM, 2024 |
| Inventory turns, mid-market vs best in class | 4 to 6 vs 8 to 12 | Mid-market distributors vs best in class; on-time delivery 85 to 90% vs 95 to 98% | MDM, Ducker Carlisle analysis (no year on page), undated |
| Distributors raising prices when costs rise | 91% | Distributors under $100M, second quarter 2026; 37% share costs with suppliers, 33% absorb part, 24% add surcharges | MDM, quarterly survey, 2026 |
| Freight spend, year over year | +20.4% | Cass client freight transactions, September 2026; shipments up 1.9%, truckload linehaul up 10.1% | Cass Freight Index, via FreightWaves, 2026 |
| Average hourly earnings, warehousing and storage | $26.74 | US warehousing and storage, August 2026; wholesale trade overall $40.06 in September 2026 | US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Industries at a Glance, 2026 |
| What a 1% price change does to distributor profit | +22% EBITDA | McKinsey analysis of distributors; at an 18% gross margin a 1% price cut needs about 6% more volume to break even | McKinsey, Pricing: Distributors' most powerful value-creation lever, 2019 |
These are published figures from the sources named, not Syboost results. They are here so you can see where your own numbers sit. Your readout uses your numbers, not these.
Margin in distribution leaks through small holes, and the holes are in the handoffs: between the vendor and the shelf, the shelf and the invoice, the invoice and the bank.
Most distributors still price cost-plus: a markup over a cost basis (replacement, last paid, average, or landed), usually through a price matrix that sets margin by customer type, customer size, and how price-sensitive the product is. Larger customers earn lower tiers. Manufacturer special pricing agreements give certain end customers a lower cost, and the Distribution Strategy Group reports those make up 10 to 15% of through-stock sales on average. Supplier volume rebates sit on top and are negotiated separately from bulk discounts, terms, and freight.
The leverage is enormous and usually unmanaged. McKinsey found a 1% price increase yields a 22% increase in EBITDA margin for a typical distributor, and at an 18% gross margin a 1% price cut needs about 6% more volume just to break even. When costs rose in 2026, 91% of smaller distributors raised prices, but a third absorbed part of the increase.
The slip is in the matrix itself: a sell group priced at the wrong margin, an override a salesperson made two years ago that never expired, a special pricing agreement that outlived the deal, and a cost basis that ignores freight. The diagnostic puts your invoice-level margin next to your matrix, which is where the losing invoices show up.
Landed cost as the basis, margin targets by sell group and customer tier, overrides that expire, and a monthly report of invoices below target margin with a name next to each.
Thresholds, deadlines, and claim status on one page, out of the spreadsheet and into a process. Someone owns the claim, and the finance side sees it before the vendor's deadline, not after.
Every SKU with no movement in twelve months surfaced quarterly, with a decision rule: return, discount, bundle, or write down. Reorder points tied to real velocity so the shelf stops filling itself.
Enter your own numbers. The calculator does nothing but multiply them.
Arithmetic on your own inputs. The 20% starting point sits inside the 12 to 30% of inventory that a HARDI study found had not sold in over 12 months at multi-location hardlines wholesalers (2023). The 25% carrying rate is Oracle NetSuite's rule of thumb that carrying costs often run 20 to 30% of inventory value per year. Both are starting points; your count and your rate are what matter. Nothing here is a projection or a Syboost promise.
Two or more of these and it usually is. The 30-Day Operations Diagnostic is $5,000, credited toward implementation if you continue within 30 days of the readout.
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