Sure there is a benefit for the small shop to open the catalogue and have access to thousands of items. More importantly, they may even have terms with the disty (free money for 30/60 days). However, this all for nothing when a common way of buying is to go into a shop try the new jacket on then go home and buy it from a US vendor because they offer better service and a better price. The fact is shops are closing, meaning it's going to affect you and your business. Disty needs the corner store, but with less and fewer corner stores who is the disty going to sell to? Is disty going to change their model and start to offer and sell items online to the general public and circumvent their customers (this corner store)? The bike shops are not evolving, they are going out of business. Disty's are losing customers and they have big inventories with either borrowed money or all their own capital tied up in it. The manufactures would rather ship several pallets or full truckloads to a disty then two hundred small packages a day to a consumer. Shipping a full truckload takes one to two people, shipping two hundred parcels a day takes lots of staff, not including all the hassles dealing with returns. The disty do offer value to the motorcycle shop but with fewer and fewer shops and some disty in trouble who is to blame? The consumer.
