For decades, Procter & Gamble has been recognized as one of the most cooperative and supportive channel partners. It advertises widely, offers frequent coupons and other promotions, and provides in-store support.

But now, Andrew Elliot — a vice-president at WD Partners, a global shopper strategy and design company based in Columbus, Ohio — has published an article provocatively titled “Does P&G Need Retailers Anymore?”

As Elliot states:

“Procter & Gamble’s $89 million distribution center near Dayton brings jobs to the region, but as part of a supply-chain overhaul, it also represents the inevitable – and potentially dramatic – transformation of the retail landscape. The distribution center would ‘dramatically innovate the way we supply our customers,’ Global Products Supply Officer Yannis Skoufalos said when the news was announced, allowing P&G to ‘respond to customers and our consumers in a way we have never done before.’”

“That language might sound vague and coded at first blush, but it couldn’t be clearer: P&G is scaling up its direct-to-consumer capabilities. [emphasis added] The distribution center merely represents a cold, hard capital fact, the culmination of less capital-intensive strategic moves in recent years by the consumer products behemoth. Seeking to grow sales in all areas, P&G has been taking an ‘all of the above’ approach in the battle of brick-and-mortar versus point and click.”

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