United Natural Foods plans to roll out a business-to-business platform called Community Marketplace, designed to boost access to local products and new brands, and it will facilitate the shipment of items directly to retailers instead of using distribution centers to fill the orders. UNFI will also add 200 new private label products to its lineup in 2021, building on the continued success of its 5,000 own brand products in driving robust sales.

Walmart will close a supercenter store in North Dallas on March 30 and convert it to a fulfillment center for online grocery and general merchandise orders. The store's 200 employees will be transferred to other area stores and those who choose to be trained for jobs in the new facility will return there when it reopens next year, the company said.

The growth in e-commerce will require another 125 million square feet or more of logistics space each year until 2025 -- and that's just in the US and Europe, according to a Prologis Research report. On a worldwide level, corporate growth "should generate the need for three to four billion square feet or more of modern logistics stock over the next cycle," the report says.

The pandemic has forced distributors to understand how e-commerce drives pricing, what causes changes in demand and the elements of secondary price structure, writes Lee Nyari of The Innovative Pricing Group. "And in light of the importance of pricing consistently across channels, the days of pricing by way of routine manual overrides may be numbered," Nyari writes.

Artificial intelligence and other technology can help sales representatives perform better by improving their response times, freeing them up to handle more complex transactions and giving them comprehensive information about customers' purchasing patterns, Benj Cohen writes.

Great CEOs do simple but difficult things like create a clear vision, instill a strong culture and emphasize team structures, according to Adam Bryant and former Amgen President and CEO Kevin Sharer. "Leadership is not easy, but Bryant and Sharer believe that if you understand it as a series of paradoxes, you will be better able to become the leader you need to be," Michael McKinney writes.

Blocking out a maximum of 90 minutes for focused work, especially on important tasks, is usually more effective than navigating a long to-do list, writes Naphtali Hoff. "Knowing that you have blocked time for that will allow you to work on your prioritized items without worrying that you won't find time for the deferable tasks," he writes.

In this free NAW webinar on April 6, at 2 p.m. Eastern, Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein will evaluate the marketplace strategic options available to distributors, such as becoming a third-party seller on a merchant-owned marketplace, becoming a third-party seller on a marketplace not owned by a merchant, building your own marketplace, the imperative for an industry-owned marketplace, and opting out of marketplaces. Register now! Check out the full Adding Value in a Post-Pandemic World series! Sponsored by Oracle Netsuite.

During this 90-minute open discussion, you'll exchange ideas with a trusted network of C-suite peers in distribution. Companies belonging to this community are from firms between $100 million and up to $1 billion in annual sales. There is no formal agenda or speakers -- just you and more than a dozen of your friends in distribution discussing today's pressing issues. Last year, participants shared how they were protecting their employees during the pandemic and more. Don't miss this opportunity. Register today.

Through the NAW Certificate in Distribution Professional Management, which is completely virtual in 2021, NAW and our partner Texas A&M University offer these three comprehensive sessions to help you help your managers to strengthen their skills with the educational foundation they need to enhance their value to your company: Optimizing Distributor Profitability, May 24-27; Generating and Managing Growth, July 19-23; Distributor Capability Development, October 18-22. Register your team today!