Distributors: order history and supplier email

Mainly the correspondence: haggling with suppliers over prices, substitutes and delays, customers asking about delivery slots and returns, plus the order records linking it all.

Orders record the outcome. The surrounding emails show how your staff made the call, and that reasoning is what buyers prize.

Buyers typically set a floor of 20 to 30 staff and a few years of records. Certain buyers only count US-based office employees, so count your desk-based people separately from the warehouse. List your software up front: ERP or accounts system, the purchasing mailbox, and a CRM if you use one.

For businesses still trading, buyers advertise roughly $100K to $2M (self-reported). Among Pewter's 2026 examples is an industrial distributor that got $1.2M nine days after bidding closed, a figure Pewter reports itself without naming the client.

Your records are packed with figures a rival would value, like supplier costs, client pricing and rebate deals. Taking names out leaves those numbers in place. Exclude pricing files and check cleaned samples for margins. See competitors.

Less than most owners expect. By the buyers' own estimates the owner's part is roughly 1 to 3 hours: a scoping call, deciding what is in and out, and approving the export. The buyer can usually work with your IT person or provider on the export itself.

Start with the match quiz using your headcount and systems, and get every promise in the written offer.