Amazon surprised some with its purchase of Whole Foods for $13.4 billion. I predict the online giant will launch a similar attack on the B2B eCommerce market by purchasing a brick-and-mortar wholesale distributor — WW Grainger, say — some time over the next 18 months.

But even if that day doesn’t come for two or three years, there’s no doubting the massive threat to any and all industrial suppliers that Amazon would pose with a bricks-and-mortar presence in communities around the country.