Industrial and construction supplies distributor Fastenal reported its August 2024 sales figures on Sept. 6, showing modestly improved growth month-to-month after July was its weakest growth month in more than three years.

Contrary to July, sales growth improved in all geographies, as well as the company’s largest end markets.

The Big Picture

• The company posted total August sales of $652.6 million, which was actually down 2.3% year-over-year, but August 2023 had an additional selling day. On a daily sales basis, August 2024 was up 2.1% year-over-year, improving from July’s 0.5%
• Fastener sales continued to decline, while safety and ‘Other’ sales showed solid month-to-month improvement
• Growth improved from manufacturing customers, while construction and reseller continued to decline
• National accounts sales improved, while non-national accounts continued to decline — albeit less than July
• Strong eBusiness growth continued in August, but decelerated from July

Though still soft by Fastenal’s historical standards, August was a rebound from July, which marked the company’s weakest daily sales growth figure since May 2021 (-3.2%). 

Premium: Fastenal Details Rollout of Internal AI Tools (Aug. 23)

MDM’s Take

Fastenal is the only publicly-traded industrial distributor that shares a monthly sales report, making it a good barometer for the overall health and demand status for the markets it serves. It’s far too soon to say whether the company’s August daily sales improvement indicates acceleration in the greater industrial supply sector, but stringing together several months of gains could.

Go Deeper

Here’s the breakdown of Fastenal’s August 2024 sales report:

August Daily Sales by Geography, Year-Over-Year:

• United States – 83.7% of sales: +1.4% (+0.1% in July)
• Canada/Mexico – 13.4% of sales: +6.2% (+2.8% in July)
• Rest of World – 2.9% of sales: +6.6% (+0.3% in July)

August Daily Sales by Product Line:

• Fasteners – 30.4% of sales: -2.2% (-6.3% in July)
• Safety – 22.2% of sales: +5.8% (7.5% in July)
• Other – 47.4% of sales: +3.7% (+1.6% in July)

August Daily Sales by Customer End Market: 

• Heavy manufacturing – 43.2% of sales: +2.3% (-1.0% in July)
• Other manufacturing – 32.4% of sales: +6.6% (+4.5% in July)
• Non-residential construction – 8.5% of sales: -6.4% (-4.6% in July)
• Reseller – 5.0% of sales: -12.5% (-14.9% in July)
• Other – 10.9% of sales: +4.7% (+5.4% in July)

August Daily Sales by Customer Category: 

• National accounts: +6.0% (+4.0% in July)
• 52.0% of Top 100 national accounts were growing (48.0% in July)
• Non-national accounts: -4.0% (-6.0% in July)
• 49.1% of in-market locations were growing (46.5% in July)
• FMI: +7.0% (+7.0% in July)
• eBusiness: +24.0% (+27.0% in July)

August Headcount

Fastenal ended August with a total headcount of 23,410, down 0.9% from July and up 2.7% year-over-year. Full-time selling headcount of 15,284 was up 0.6% from July and up 2.1% year-over-year.

Other Notes

On MDM’s 2024 Top Distributors Lists, Fastenal was No. 6 for Industrial Supplies, No. 5 for MRO, No. 1 for Fasteners, No. 2 for Safety, No. 10 for JanSan/Packaging/Disposables, No. 7 for Fluid Power and No. 22 for Electrical.

Fastenal was featured in MDM’s recent “Big Pivot” Case study, which was published in December 2023 and is available here in the MDM Store.