E-tailing behemoths like Amazon Business are infringing on electrical distributors' turf. Large distributors continue to hone and refine their e-commerce offerings. And finally, mobile e-commerce (or, m-commerce) - driven by the consumer who has grown more comfortable making purchases on smartphones and other mobile devices - is on track to hit $700bn by 2017, according to research firm Digi-Capital.

Worldwide consumer Wi-Fi customer premises equipment (CPE) shipments surpassed 43.3 million at the end of 1Q-2013. a 16.8-percent increase from 4Q-2012.