What does Distributor mean?

In the industry the term distributor can have a lot of meanings, however if one looks at prepaid stored value card programs, a distributor is a person who sells the credit card him or herself.

On a larger scale distributors are entities that buy a series of non-competing products even product lines, stores them in a warehouse, and then resells them at a later date either to retailers or to end-users and customers, directly. The distributors provide ample manpower along with cash support to suppliers or manufacturers, with promotional efforts. Besides this, they typically provide a range of services, like estimates, product information, technical support, credit, after sales services, etc., to consumers.