INDUSTRY REPORT · 2026 · HOSPITALITY DISTRIBUTION
For hospitality distributors this isn’t just an industry concern, it’s a direct threat to revenue, customer retention and future growth.
Every restaurant, pub, hotel or leisure venue that closes represents more than lost sales. It creates increased credit risk, reduced order volumes, intensified competition and greater pressure on margins.
The natural response for distributors is to respond by chasing new customers. But in challenging markets, the biggest opportunity is quite often sitting within your existing customer base.
01
A lot of distributors still see Amazon as the competition. But the reality is a bit more nuanced: Amazon rarely wins purely because it offers the lowest price. Amazon wins because it removes friction.
Customers can find products quickly, compare their options easily, access rich amounts of product information, place orders effortlessly and receive complete visibility throughout their buying journey.
The challenge for distributors, therefore, isn’t just to match Amazon prices. It’s to create a buying experience that makes customers’ lives easier.
If a customer can save themselves time, reduce their admin and simplify their procurement, they’ll often place greater value on that than a marginal price difference.
02
Acquiring a new customer has never been more expensive. Meanwhile, your existing customers already know your business, already trust your service and already understand your value.
As a result, the most successful distributors are increasingly focused on increasing share of wallet, expanding category penetration, improving loyalty, reducing churn and identifying early warning signs of disengagement.
THE CONVERSATION SHOULD EVOLVE FROM
“What products do you need?”
TO
“How can we help you operate more effectively?”
03
Hospitality operators, such as pubs, restaurants and hotels, are facing pressure from every angle: labour costs, energy bills, business rates, food inflation and supply chain volatility.
At the same time, many are managing relationships with numerous suppliers across multiple categories. Every supplier creates additional admin, invoices, deliveries, purchasing complexity and management overhead.
By consolidating spend through a trusted distributor, hospitality businesses can reduce operational costs and save valuable time that means they can refocus on running their business.
04
Pricing remains one of the biggest challenges for distributors. A lot of businesses are still relying on spreadsheets, disconnected systems and manual processes to manage increasingly complex pricing structures.
This often results in inconsistent customer pricing, margin leakage, slow reaction to supplier cost changes, poor promotional management and limited pricing visibility.
THROUGH THE CTRL COMMERCE PLATFORM
Distributors can manage customer-specific pricing, group and contract pricing, margin protection rules, promotional campaigns and automated pricing governance from a single platform.
05
One of the biggest barriers to growth for modern distributors isn’t sales. It’s product data. Many distributors are expected to manage tens of thousands, and increasingly hundreds of thousands, of products across multiple suppliers and categories.
• Descriptions
• Specifications
• Images
• Attributes
• Categorisation
• SEO content
• Pricing data
• Availability information
Without robust processes, product data quickly becomes outdated, inconsistent and difficult for customers to navigate online.
Poor product data creates friction. Customers struggle to find products, conversion rates fall and sales opportunities are missed.
06
CTRL Commerce includes an integrated Product Information Management capability designed specifically for complex B2B distribution environments. Rather than managing product data across disconnected systems, distributors can centralise product management through a single platform.
Today, CTRL Commerce manages and merchandises product catalogues containing more than 200,000 products, helping distributors source supplier data, cleanse and enrich product content, maintain accuracy and accelerate onboarding.
By integrating directly with suppliers and automating product data workflows, distributors can significantly reduce manual administration while improving the customer experience.
07
Not all hospitality customers are the same. Modern distributors are increasingly using customer data to segment audiences based on customer type, industry sector, buying behaviour, spend levels, product preferences and growth potential.
This allows highly targeted campaigns that are relevant to individual customers, improving engagement, conversion and customer loyalty.
08
Hospitality will remain a challenging sector in the years ahead. Some customers will inevitably struggle. Some venues will close. But difficult markets also create opportunities.
Because when customers are under pressure, becoming indispensable is far more valuable than being the cheapest.
The future belongs to distributors that make buying easier, operations simpler and customer relationships stronger. That’s how revenue is protected when the market gets tough.
09
At CTRL Commerce, we’re not just a software provider. We’re a distributor that built software to solve our own challenges. Every day, we operate complex distribution businesses, manage hundreds of thousands of products and process millions of pounds of transactions through the same platform we provide to customers.
We’re not just another software vendor. We don’t just understand distribution technology. We understand distribution.
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©
2026
| CTRL Commerce