Wesco Aircraft Holdings will be bought by a Platinum Equity subsidiary and combined with Pattonair in a deal valued at about $1.9 billion. Wesco reported a fiscal third-quarter profit on Friday.

Amazon has begun testing a new program called Sold by Amazon that gives the e-commerce giant control over setting prices on third-party sellers' goods, in exchange for a guaranteed minimum payout. Sellers choose which products to include in the program and the goal is to increase sales with an automated pricing model without cutting into the seller's profits, Amazon said.

Office Depot's business-to-business performance accounted for over 60% of second-quarter revenue, says CEO Gerry Smith. "This represents a significant shift in our business, and clearly demonstrates that we are a B2B-driven company providing business products and services delivered through an integrated distribution platform with a world-class supply chain," he says.

Warehouses near the California ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are operating at near-capacity as a result of the US trade dispute with China. Operators are running out of solutions to serve the over 200,000 US businesses that rely on the ports, and trade adviser Jock O'Connell said "the ability to front-load, as [importers] did last year, to a large extent is taken off the table."

Kara Jensen outlines eight essentials for business-to-business websites, including user-centric navigation and a homepage that features video or compelling images with copy that clearly sets out a brand's offer. Incorporate educational and thought-leadership content and include customer testimonials to foster trust, she recommends.

This infographic from Red Website Design outlines six reasons marketing emails get flagged as spam, such as not being transparent about who is sending the message and not getting permission from prospects first. Additional mistakes include sending too many or irrelevant emails.

Improving your communication can be as simple as setting goals for what you want to achieve, being responsible when things go wrong and being thankful when things go right, writes Diana Peterson-More. "Start the day by asking yourself, 'At the end of the day, my communication with, about or directed to will be successful if what happens?' " she writes.

NAW's brand-new, groundbreaking research study, "Optimizing Channel Profitability: A Playbook to Align Manufacturer-Distributor-Customer Relationships," will help you to implement channel management best practices. It includes 24 best practices on channel design and management from actual distributors and manufacturers, 44 ready-to-implement action steps, and 38 real-world distributor and manufacturer examples from across the industry. You'll have the tools and best practices to make channel collaboration with your suppliers a competitive advantage for your company! Act now to save 10%.

Benj Cohen, AI technology entrepreneur and third-generation distributor, says, "Businesses succeed by using AI in many ways. Whether that is Amazon growing revenue with personalized product pitches, or UPS routing drivers efficiently to minimize costs, the bottom line is that AI gives users a competitive advantage." He explains what this technology really is, how it works and how distributors can start tapping into its benefits.

Two things are clear: major portions of the sales process will be digitized, and the sales force isn't going anywhere. What portions will be digitized and what new value-add will be created? What will remain in the hands of the sales force? Find out the answers to these questions and more by joining this cutting-edge consortium, and you'll be ahead of the rest of the industry. Get details and sign up by Aug. 31.