Small firms are paying resellers more, and the memory squeeze will test it

Average prices in the specialist reseller channel that serves small businesses across the UK and Europe are rising far faster than on the high street, according to analysis published by market intelligence firm CONTEXT in London on 4 June. In the first half of 2026, average selling prices (ASPs) in what CONTEXT calls the small and medium reseller (SMR) channel rose 7.6% year on year, against 3.2% in retail chains.

The gap is not new. In the second half of 2025, retail chain ASPs fell 0.5% while the reseller channel grew by almost 8%. In the third quarter of 2025 the split was starker: retail down 0.9%, resellers up by more than 9%. Monthly reseller growth peaked at 11% in September 2025 and 10% in March 2026.

CONTEXT reads this as a change in how small firms buy. James Bates, senior retail analyst at CONTEXT, said small business buyers need features that retail rarely puts first, from security capabilities to business operating systems and professional networking equipment. “Resellers that understand these requirements are benefiting from significantly stronger ASP growth as a result,” he said.

That is a flattering story for the channel, and partly a true one. But a rising average price is not pricing power, and it is certainly not margin. The extra that small firms are paying through a reseller is worth exactly as much as the advice that comes with it, and the second half of 2026 is when that will be tested.

Price is not the same as power

CONTEXT’s own earlier warnings explain why. In February the firm said manufacturers were moving production toward memory and storage for AI data centers, and that by December 2025 random access memory (RAM) prices in European markets had reached index levels of 155 to 220 against a July to September 2025 baseline of 100. In March it went further: memory prices in key European markets had risen to as much as three to four times their third-quarter 2025 levels, and buyers were getting significantly fewer devices for the same spend than six months earlier.

The 4 June release does not say how much of the reseller ASP rise came from component costs and how much from buyers choosing higher specifications. Both are plausibly at work. Retail prices rose too, just more slowly. The honest reading is that small firms are buying better kit and paying more for the same kit at the same time.

The March analysis also set a deadline. CONTEXT said resellers had been buying ahead to lock in 2025 cost levels, and that distributor inventory bought at those costs was cushioning prices. Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at CONTEXT, was specific about when that ends: “As we move towards the end of Q2 and into Q3, that stock will run out, and pricing will inevitably reset in line with underlying component costs.”

The second half is the test

So far, rising prices have arrived alongside rising appetite. That will not always hold. When a business notebook costs noticeably more because its memory does, a small business owner notices, and the question becomes whether the reseller’s price survives the bill.

It survives where the customer can say what they paid for. A buyer who pays more for a business operating system, stronger security and proper networking equipment is paying for a configuration someone recommended and stood behind. A buyer who paid more because the reseller was simply where they had always ordered will compare prices the moment the total jumps.

Bates described the customers driving the trend: “Whether it’s a freelance consultant, a growing start-up or a 20-person agency, technology is viewed as a tool for productivity and growth rather than a discretionary purchase.” Firms of that size are unlikely to have anyone whose job is writing a specification. For most of them, the reseller is the specification. That is the asset, and it is easy to waste.

The reason matters more than the box

Three habits follow for resellers serving small firms. The first is quote discipline with an explanation attached. CONTEXT said in March that vendors were reducing promotions, tightening discounts and shortening quote validity periods to manage risk. Passing a seven-day quote to a 20-person firm without saying why reads as opportunism. Explaining the memory market in two sentences reads as advice.

The second is to put the specification reasoning in writing: why this notebook rather than the cheaper one, why this firewall, what each choice protects. A customer who has that note in their inbox will defend the price to their own finance lead. A customer who does not will forward the retail link.

The third is to price the work the higher price implies – setup, security configuration, lifecycle planning – as services, rather than leaving it buried in the hardware margin. When ASPs reset, an unpriced service is the first thing a buyer stops valuing, because they never saw it on an invoice.

None of this requires a new program or a vendor incentive. It requires resellers to treat CONTEXT’s numbers as evidence of what small customers want, not proof that they will keep paying regardless.

Small businesses have shown they will pay more for the right kit. The channel’s job for the rest of 2026 is to make sure they still know why.