[Zog, Automation Direct is an e-tailer of industrial control products, most notably PLCs.]
Why is it that major manufacturers like Square D, Siemens, ABB, and Eaton all 'fight' to protect their distributor relationships (even though they do have some direct sales) but the smaller, almost niche, manufacturers sell almost to anyone? Did they get big in spite of, or because of, their distributors?
Manufacturers sell through distribution simply because they 'net' more overall money. The multiplication of sales effort is worth the occasional 5-10% 'finders fee' that is lost by not taking an order direct.
A large national sale force for a manufacturer might be 400 people. How many companies, that will buy only (1) MCC per year can they contact? Now add 12,000 distributor sales people, how many single MCC order's can they get in a year?
But, every major manufacturer I know of, will take an order direct, completely cutting out the distributor, when market conditions dictate (i.e when selling to OEMs).