Is AmazonSupply A Threat To Traditional Industrial Distributors?

Amazon's move into the business-to-business space is a potential threat to several traditional distributors that are already struggling to keep step with sophisticated business technologies and changing customer preferences, according to manufacturing analysts.

Designed to focus on business and industrial equipment, AmazonSupply was launched to tap into evolving preferences for online commerce among industrial companies. It hit the ground running with more than 500,000 offerings.

Some traditional distributors said the AmazonSupply venture is an effort to cash in on the fragmented and comparatively competition-light industrial supply market served by thousands of small-to-midsize distribution businesses across the U.S.

Amazon's entry into the industrial-distribution space could as well be driven by its will to make its investors happy. But, the company's to all appearances unbridled foray into every corner in the world of sales, ranging from cloud computing to groceries and industrial supplies, diffuses its core expertise and undermines its fundamental strengths, just as books, music, and movies, some financial analysts say.