Today’s supply chain grapples with the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, surging fuel costs, spiraling costs of labor and raw materials, the threat of stagflation and economic recession — whether current or impending — all in addition to rising consumer demands. All these factors build up, stressing relationships between trading partners and, ultimately, reshaping trading behaviors between manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

As businesses continue to function under these incredible pressures, rebates offer a tool to alleviate stress, build trust and encourage more desirable behaviors between trading partners.

Taking all of this into consideration, Enable decided to survey nearly 250 distributors across 14 industries about their volume rebate programs. We wanted to learn more about how trading partners use their rebates, how important rebates are to business and the challenges trading partners face in executing their rebates. Some of what we learned confirmed what we already knew—that rebates are integral to distributors’ profitability equations. But we uncovered some challenges too: namely that communication is a difficult barrier to overcome.