Survey of IP Video Surveillance Distributors

Anixter, Graybar, Scansource and Techdata are 4 of the most well known distributors of IP video surveillance serving North American IT integrators. Manufacturers contract with distributors to handle sales, stocking, training and pre-sales support for their products to mainstream integrators.

A recent SDM article provides an overview of these 4 distributors.

Key points made by each distributor include:

• TechData: Reports 100,000 re-sellers, 15,000 regular purchasers and 'a few thousand' purchase security equipment on a regular basis. As such, security is still a small but growing segment of their customer base. Techdata says they will do customizations for their clients including hardware upgrades and pre-loading of sofware.
• Anixter [link no longer available]: Reports thousands of video surveillance customers as well as IT specialists moving into security. Anixter stressed its in house lab for testing and demonstrating IP video surveillance.
• Graybar [link no longer available]: States that its largest differentiator is the broad range of systems they sell and provide support. Grabyar stated that they provide local staging for large projects.
• ScanSource Security: Reports 64% of sales in IP video; 36% in analog. ScanSource emphasizes the provision of services including training, custom configuration and network assessment