Industrial and construction supplies distributor Fastenal shared its monthly sales report on May 6, showing the company’s smallest year-over-year daily sales gain since May of 2021. It came against tough comparables, as many industrial distributors were still seeing pricing-inflated substantial gains in the spring of 2023.

Fastenal posted total April 2024 sales of $649 million, up 10.% year-over-year, but with two additional selling days vs. a year earlier. On a daily basis, sales were up just 0.7%. It was a further deceleration from March’s 1.8% and February’s 2.6% and the distributor’s weakest daily sales gain since May of 2021 (-3.2%).

Daily sales declined sequentially vs. March in all three of the company’s geographies and product lines.

Here’s a look at how Fastenal’s year-over-year daily sales growth has fared per month since the start of 2021. Hover over the chart line for the interactive figures.

Source: Fastenal monthly sales reports

Find other key details from Fastenal’s April 2024 sales report below:

Daily Sales by Geography, Year-Over-Year:

• United States — 83.3% of sales: 0.0% (+1.0% in March)
• Canada/Mexico — 13.7% of sales: +5.7% (+5.0% in March)
• Rest of World — 3.0% of sales: -3.2% (+9.6% in March)

Daily Sales by Product Line:

• Fasteners — 31.6% of sales: -2.2% (-3.7% in March)
• Safety — 21.2% of sales: +5.1% (+6.8% in March)
• Other — 47.2% of sales: +1.2% (+3.8% in March)

Daily Sales by Customer End Market: 

• Heavy manufacturing — 43.4% of sales: +1.9% (+2.0% in March)
• Other manufacturing — 32.2% of sales: +2.2% (+3.4% in March
• Non-residential construction — 8.7% of sales: -5.6% (-7.4% in March)
• Reseller — 5.5% of sales: -3.9% (+2.6% in March)
• Other — 10.2% of sales: +1.2% (+2.6% in March)

Daily Sales by Customer Category: 

• National accounts: +4.0% in April (+6.0% in March)
  • 61.0% of Top 100 national accounts were growing in April (58.0% in March)
• 48.9% of in-market locations were growing in April (50.1% in March)
• Non-national accounts: -4.0% (-4.0% in March)
• FMI: +6.0% (+6.0% in March)
• eProcurement: +26.0% (+30.0% in March)

Other Notes

• Fastenal ended April with a total headcount of 23,725 — up 4.0% year-over-year and essentially flat vs. March. Its 15,201 selling personnel at the end of April were up 3.2% year-over-year and up 0.7% vs. March.