Sales growth accelerated and operating profit jumped, even as pricing contributed less. But September missed street forecast and Fastenal’s seasonal benchmark. Here, we break down the quarterly results, monthly metrics and implications for industrial distributors.
Stolen inventory and property is only the beginning. See our key takeaways from a valuable new discussion about how security breaches disrupt operations, strain customer relationships and create costs that distributors often overlook – and...
Moving flawed data to the cloud or dressing it up with a dashboard doesn’t make it modern. This piece explains why real data modernization starts with clean inputs, clear ownership and common definitions — then...
The federal government’s new AI-powered america.gov site offers a lesson for distributors: Customers shouldn’t have to navigate your internal complexity to get answers. This piece explores five ideas worth borrowing — and what the latest...
U.S. wholesale sales accelerated in August, rising 1.8% as 16 of 19 product categories posted monthly gains. Durable goods led the advance — especially for those tied to data centers — while inventory growth slowed considerably,...
MDM got an inside look at Global Industrial’s national trade show, where the MRO distributor’s product breadth offered a window into its growing focus on customer verticals and deeper account relationships.
Rising fuel, labor and operating costs are putting added pressure on distributor margins. This article explores how AI-powered route optimization can help distributors cut unnecessary fleet miles, improve delivery efficiency and reduce costs — without...
Surcharges and price increases that were never meant to be permanent may still be sitting in distributors’ price books. It may be time to revisit what still holds up — and what doesn’t.
NAW’s 2026 AI Adoption Index suggests early returns are showing up as time saved, greater throughput and avoided hiring long before they appear as broad job reductions.
Formerly our Premium Monthly report — a PDF often spanning 30-40 pages — our Intelligence Brief provides a consise, synthesized eight-page briefing that extracts the biggest takeaways and themes from the articles published each month....
Get our rundown of every deal we published during September, along with our updated monthly deal count and breakdown of year-to-date transactions by product category.
Giving commercial teams more pricing authority doesn’t have to mean losing control. This piece explains how distributors can use pricing guardrails, centralized visibility and deterministic controls to balance local market flexibility with financial discipline —...
