I took this list of wholesale entities from ranker.com since Wikipedia - unless they have listed under Distributors - have no list of the largest wholesalers.
I hold no rancour for
Ranker but I've been unable to determine whether their list is for the companies who hold the most stock in their warehouse, the ones with the furthest reach or greatest bottom line.
I do know that I like the list because it has a good balance of co-ops and chemists, and any list that leads off with an offering of the
Czech Republic deserves some attention. Though it is eccentric to number your biggest wholesale companies when they have been placed in alphabetical order.
They have enough cache (the companies, that is) to consider what this means. Apart from the predictable
United States and
United Kingdom, the wholesale countries include
Australia,
Norway,
Germany and
Japan.
Norway is very well represented with about four companies.
II
Now I've had only glancing contact with commerce other than as a customer so any number crunching is for entertainment purpose only. I am interested in the distribution, given the differences: are some things Made in China and then shipped to a warehouse in Norway? I notice that many of these humongous wholesalers are also manufacturers, which makes sense unless you are looking at names or countries on one list that don't also appear on another.
Capital Health is the only name common to both.
Speaking of names, there's another clue perhaps. None of these could have been selected for their brand name recognition. No
Toyotas or
Samsungs here, that's for sure.
Alright so we have these big setups in sometimes unexpected countries who have a starchy and nondescript name because the spotlight falls on the retailers they service. There are even oddities like the
Amerisourcebergens who must be related, and the way that
Altronics carries equipment by
Redback Audio somewhat confusing roles.
