Headquarters: Winona, MN
2013 Revenues: $232.8 million (janitorial supplies)
Change in Sales from 2012: 14% (janitorial supplies)
Employees: 17,277
Locations: 14 distribution centers
Number of new locations: 27 net new stores in North America
Key Executives: Willard Oberton, CEO; Leland Hein, president; Daniel Florness, CFO; Steven Rucinski, EVP-sales, Gary Polipnik, EVP-sales; Kenneth Nance, EVP-sales; Reyne Wisecup, EVP-human resources; Nicholas Lundquist, EVP-operations; James Jansen, EVP-operations; Michael Camp, EVP-product and procurement; Ashok Singh, EVP-information technology

Fastenal has diversified its product and service mix over the years, with just 42 percent of its 2013 sales coming from fasteners, compared with 47 percent in 2011. In recent years, vending has been a key growth driver for the distributor. In its latest call on its first quarter 2014 earnings, Fastenal reported about 12 percent of its total business is going through vending machines. Close to 40 percent of Fastenal's current business is with customers who have vending as part of their product offering.

In its 2013 annual SEC filing, the distributor said that the decrease in its fastener sales as a percentage of total sales has been driven by non-fastener product line expansion, started in 1990s, and the growth of its industrial vending program, FAST Solutions. It credits the latter with “greater resilience to weak industrial production” of its non-fastener business compared with its fastener business.

In the first quarter 2014, Fastenal said it would continue focusing on its vending program, but that total vending signings were down. The distributor has increased its focus on part-time workers to manage expenses and “drive up store efficiency.”

Download the Top 40 Industrial Distributor List Free

Get the Top 40 Industrial Distributors list in PDF, and you will be signed up below to receive MDM Update, your free daily distribution news update by email.

Submit