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Market Analysis

Vendor Costs are Eating Your Margin. Your Bigger Competitors Don’t Have that Problem

New MDM data reveals that sub-$100M distributors face a fundamentally different margin threat than their larger peers — and the pressure is about to get worse.

May 28, 2026

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Editor’s Note: Welcome to “The Hidden Majority” — a new column series from MDM authored by one of our top contributing writers, Nelson Valderrama. This series is all about providing thought leadership and industry analysis geared for small- to mid-sized distributors — which comprise the vast majority of the wholesale distribution landscape. Leveraging the quarterly Baird-MDM survey data, Nelson dives into the numbers and commentary to identify trends and takeaways that apply to SMBs in the industry.

Ask a $400 million revenue distributor, "What's squeezing your margin?” They’ll tell you about…

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