4 E-Business Updates from Tech Data

Last year, during the 2016 edition of its spring TechSelect meeting, eBusiness director David Spindler told ChannelPro that Tech Data was processing 78 percent of reseller orders over the web or through system-to-system integration via EDI or XML. 12 months later that figure has risen to almost 82 percent.

“We’ve seen 16 percent growth on overall revenue of eBusiness year over year,” Spindler says. That’s 3 times faster than Tech Data’s overall revenue growth during the same period, he adds.

Changes that Spindler previewed at Tech Data’s fall 2016 TechSelect meeting are now contributing to that growth too. Seeking to make phone ordering less appealing to resellers, for example, the distributor has waived handling fees on electronic transactions, added web-only specials, and lowered the free freight threshold for online orders to $500, among other measures. According to Spindler, steps like that have boosted electronic revenue 25 percent among SMB partners just in the last 6 months.

“The marketplace is realizing that doing business electronically is the way of the future,” he says.