The middleman often play an important role for companies that do not have a shipping department. Forty years ago the ability to get stuff shipped two or three days anywhere in the 48 states was SUPER EXPENSIVE (listen to Priority Mail from USPS adds). Distributors covered the "Flooring Costs" (cost of holding stock) thus improving the manufacturer's cash flow and were better at shipping as and receiving were 90% of thier job.

It also allows for a dealer to combine all thier orders of multiple manufacturers providing some easy to prove level of volume and potentially discount.

Need or want, on our side of the equation perhaps not. But, on the manufacturer's side they might be.

While we have USPS, FedEx, UPS and others how many different rules from state to state (county to county) are there out there that manufacturers have to monitor (e.g. CA, Cook County, NYC)? Might be a large part of the job for a distributor.

B2