BJE Enterprises stops distribution

Bernard van’t Hof, managing director of BJE told CRN he decided to pull out of the distribution business after a review of operations.

“It was pretty obvious that vendors need a combination of a bank and courier company. We ran the business for almost 20 years, with Logitech being one of the first customers. However at the end of the day there just was no future in [distribution] in its current format,” he said.

Vendors have become closer to retailers, claimed van’t Hof. The trend now is for vendors to use distributors rather differently than what they use to it’s all about fulfilment, “all you need to be is a courier company," he said.

van’t Hof, sent its resellers a message saying: “Following a review of operations and discussions with vendors it is clear that the role of distributor going forward is primarily one of fulfilment rather than value-add”.

While BJE customers were disappointed by van’t Hof’s decision to close, he said they were also very supportive and understood his decision.

“Yesterday we met with our bigger resellers to tell then the news. We will be working with our vendor partners to ensure the transition is as smooth as possible,” he said.

“We have been supplying products to Harvey Norman, Harris Technology and Bing Lee for almost 10 years. Back when I started there were lots of retailers; lots of distributors; all sorts of vendors; and none of them really big. Now you only get around three major retailers, a couple of distributors and very powerful vendors and that is the evolution of the industry,” he said.

According to van’t Hof once everything was finalised he would take some time off to contemplate his future.