In the second quarter 2013, Grainger (NYSE: GWW) reported sales to light manufacturing were up in the high single digits and sales to heavy manufacturing were up in the mid-single digits.
“Our continued success with manufacturing customers further reinforces our commitment to add products and services to best serve customers in this important end-market,” said Laura Brown, senior vice president of communications and investor relations, in a podcast on the distributor’s second quarter 2013 earnings.
“The addition of more sales representatives, more products and more KeepStock installations are contributing to share gain.”
Brown provided an update on these growth drivers:
- Grainger added 75 new sales reps in the U.S. in the first half of the year and expects to hire another 100 by the end of the year. The distributor also has expanded its sales force in many of its international businesses, including Canada, Brazil and Mexico.
- E-commerce sales are growing at twice the rate of Grainger’s other channels. For the first half of the year, e-commerce represented 32 percent of total company sales, up 200 basis points from 2012. (Read more on Grainger's e-commerce plans: "We're Not Close to Being Done with E-Commerce.")
- Grainger added more than 6,200 KeepStock installations (its inventory management services platform) in the first half of the year in the U.S. The distributor is targeting 10,000 installations before the year’s end. It added nearly 1,400 new installations outside of the U.S., primarily in Canada.
Grainger was No. 2 on MDM’s list of the 2013 Top 40 Industrial Distributors.
