Wholesale distribution: The chimera in the channel

The paper develops previous work published in this journal on the concept of New Commerce by exploring the nature of changes in wholesaling since the mid 1990s. The previously identified dimensions of New Commerce are considered in the context of changes in wholesaling and three organisations of different types are used to illustrate how their activities can be considered as New Commerce. It is suggested that organisations with the characteristics New Commerce operate alongside more traditionally structured organisations. There are, therefore, emerging two distinctively different broad organisational models in wholesaling. Both are addressing the same overall function inherent in wholesaling although the ways that functions are bundled and that vertical and horizontal relationships are managed are quite different.