Recent NAW survey results and independent case studies show that understanding the days-long gap between supplier cost increases and pricing response can help distributors feel more confident in protecting margins. The second in this three-part "The Hidden Majority" series shows that every day you wait, margin slips away.
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ECONOMIC OUTLOOK REPORTS
This comprehensive NAW 3Q26 Forecast is a guide to the U.S. wholesale distribution economy, providing a historical, current and future snapshot of numerous key economic indicators in one convenient place along with our exclusive sector-specific forecasts for 19 different product categories. Its economic indicator data is updated through July 17.
This comprehensive MDM 2Q26 Forecast is a guide to the U.S. wholesale distribution economy, providing a historical, current and future snapshot of numerous key economic indicators in one convenient place along with our exclusive sector-specific forecasts for 19 different product categories. Its economic indicator data is updated through May 15.
Premium Monthly
Our new-look Intelligence Brief synthesizes all of our monthly Premium articles into a six-page report that distills key takeaways from that content — a perfect quick read for busy executives.
Our new-look Intelligence Brief synthesizes all of our monthly Premium articles into a six-page report that distills key takeaways from that content — a perfect quick read for busy executives.
Market Insight Reports
NAW’s 2Q26 MarketPulse Report consists of the quarterly results, analysis and commentary from the latest Baird-MDM Industrial Distribution Survey — conducted early July — that explored revenue performance, pricing and business expectations for the current quarter and rest-of-year. It includes a wealth of market-specific data and commentary from survey respondents.
See our updated monthly deal counts; a year-to-date breakdown of M&A activity by product category; the latest EBITDA trading multiples for 27 publicly traded industrial distributors; our latest M&A-led Premium article; and our detailed recap of dealmaking activity during April-June, which saw decelerated but still healthy activity.
Case Studies
This MDM Case Study examines how Stellar Industrial Supply built a differentiated growth model around documented customer savings, service-first selling and digital execution — turning measurable value creation into a durable platform for customer loyalty, expansion and operational excellence.
How has Singer Industrial grown into a 55-plus-company platform while preserving local leadership and culture? This MDM Case Study explores the industrial rubber, fluid power and automation distributor’s coordinated autonomy model, acquisition strategy and technology investments that are helping drive scale, efficiency and long-term growth.
Premium Articles
AI agents can quickly inflate costs and amplify risk when every task uses the same model. This article shows how intelligent model routing, firm guardrails and human oversight can help distributors scale AI responsibly while controlling spend and maintaining accountability.
Distribution deal activity remains resilient, but buyers are applying greater scrutiny to margins, recurring revenue and competitive differentiation. PMCF’s Joe Wagner explains which assets are commanding premiums, how acquisition priorities are changing and what prospective sellers should do now.
The 2Q26 NAW-Baird Industrial Distribution Survey reveals what distributors are most excited — and most concerned — about over the next 12 months, from demand recovery to geopolitical uncertainty.
Construction estimates often fail because labor, pricing, freight and lead-time assumptions become outdated before purchasing begins. This article explains how distributors can provide the real-time market intelligence, transparent quotes and delivery planning customers need to reduce budget surprises and build more reliable project estimates.
After five straight considerable upward revisions to the industry’s 2026 revenue outlook, our latest Forecast was comparatively quiet at the top line. Oil & Gas gave back some of its recent surge, but broad upgrades elsewhere kept the overall forecast moving slightly higher. Get your much more valuable sector-specific revenue forecasts here.
June wholesale sales gave back most of May’s gain, but remained 14.1% above a year earlier as inventories edged higher. The monthly pullback was concentrated in oil and gas, while sales across the rest of wholesale trade were nearly flat. Get all the key figures and trend charts here.
NAW Research suggests manufacturers want distributors to communicate more and plan more strategically. Distributors, meanwhile, are asking for many of the same things from suppliers. Explore commentary from both sides in the latest 2Q26 NAW-Baird Industrial Distribution Survey.
Amazon will automatically reimburse customers in limited cases where it can trace tariff charges to specific purchases. New disclosures from Grainger and Global Industrial show that sizable refunds are also reaching industrial distributors and materially affecting reported margins.
Activity improved from a weaker June, with Ferguson's pending $1.6 billion purchase of FloWorks serving as the biggest transaction of the bunch, by far. Get our rundown of every deal we published during July, along with our updated monthly deal count and breakdown of year-to-date transactions by product category.
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AI agents can quickly inflate costs and amplify risk when every task uses the same model. This article shows how intelligent model routing, firm guardrails and human oversight can help distributors scale AI responsibly while controlling spend and maintaining accountability.
Distribution deal activity remains resilient, but buyers are applying greater scrutiny to margins, recurring revenue and competitive differentiation. PMCF’s Joe Wagner explains which assets are commanding premiums, how acquisition priorities are changing and what prospective sellers should do now.
The 2Q26 NAW-Baird Industrial Distribution Survey reveals what distributors are most excited — and most concerned — about over the next 12 months, from demand recovery to geopolitical uncertainty.
Construction estimates often fail because labor, pricing, freight and lead-time assumptions become outdated before purchasing begins. This article explains how distributors can provide the real-time market intelligence, transparent quotes and delivery planning customers need to reduce budget surprises and build more reliable project estimates.
After five straight considerable upward revisions to the industry’s 2026 revenue outlook, our latest Forecast was comparatively quiet at the top line. Oil & Gas gave back some of its recent surge, but broad upgrades elsewhere kept the overall forecast moving slightly higher. Get your much more valuable sector-specific revenue forecasts here.
June wholesale sales gave back most of May’s gain, but remained 14.1% above a year earlier as inventories edged higher. The monthly pullback was concentrated in oil and gas, while sales across the rest of wholesale trade were nearly flat. Get all the key figures and trend charts here.
NAW Research suggests manufacturers want distributors to communicate more and plan more strategically. Distributors, meanwhile, are asking for many of the same things from suppliers. Explore commentary from both sides in the latest 2Q26 NAW-Baird Industrial Distribution Survey.
Amazon will automatically reimburse customers in limited cases where it can trace tariff charges to specific purchases. New disclosures from Grainger and Global Industrial show that sizable refunds are also reaching industrial distributors and materially affecting reported margins.
Activity improved from a weaker June, with Ferguson's pending $1.6 billion purchase of FloWorks serving as the biggest transaction of the bunch, by far. Get our rundown of every deal we published during July, along with our updated monthly deal count and breakdown of year-to-date transactions by product category.
Most distributors report stable supplier relationships over the past two years, while manufacturers report significantly greater improvement. See commentary and results from the latest 2Q26 NAW-Baird Industrial Distribution Survey.
In the fourth and final installment of this series, Bart Tessel explores why the next wholesale-distribution operating model is built on flow, better decisions and continuous adaptation.
Our latest update shows a fifth straight considerable upward revision to the broader industry's 2026 forecast, driven again by oil & gas and data center-fed electrical & electronics. Get your much more valuable sector-specific revenue forecasts here.
The company pointed to share gains alongside a modestly improving industrial backdrop. Here, we break down all the key figures and executive commentary from Fastenal’s 2Q26 and June financial reports.
Grainger’s eCommerce story started 30 years ago with the early move from catalog to web. Today, that head start has become a digital operating system spanning High-Touch Solutions, Endless Assortment, product data, AI and fulfillment scale. This third and final part of our Grainger deep dive explores the timeline and strategic levers Grainger has pulled to achieve its best-in-class digital offering.
QXO’s latest investor Q&A details how the building products distributor plans to turn Beacon, Kodiak and TopBuild into a connected platform built around procurement leverage, margin expansion, cross-selling and a multiyear technology rollout.
This third of our four-part series explores why LSS AI belongs in margin management before it belongs in the warehouse.
Activity was the lightest its been so far in 2026, both in activity and size of deals done. Get our rundown of every deal we published about during June, along with our updated monthly deal count and breakdown of year-to-date transactions by product category
City Electric Supply’s new Industrial Automation Solutions launch shows how a distributor can turn customer demand, supplier alignment and internal branch support into a new service platform. With more than 700 branches across North America, learn why and how CES created the new offering.
3M’s new customer-facing AI tool gives industrial users direct access to technical product expertise — a move that signals how manufacturers are using digital tools to get closer to end customers.
Grainger’s product advantage is not just SKU count. It is the company’s ability to curate complexity through merchandising discipline, supplier management, private label, standardization and product data. That’s the focus in the second of this three-part Grainger deep dive.
AI agents can quickly inflate costs and amplify risk when every task uses the same model. This article shows how intelligent model routing, firm guardrails and human oversight can help distributors scale AI responsibly while controlling spend and maintaining accountability.
Distribution deal activity remains resilient, but buyers are applying greater scrutiny to margins, recurring revenue and competitive differentiation. PMCF’s Joe Wagner explains which assets are commanding premiums, how acquisition priorities are changing and what prospective sellers should do now.
The 2Q26 NAW-Baird Industrial Distribution Survey reveals what distributors are most excited — and most concerned — about over the next 12 months, from demand recovery to geopolitical uncertainty.
Construction estimates often fail because labor, pricing, freight and lead-time assumptions become outdated before purchasing begins. This article explains how distributors can provide the real-time market intelligence, transparent quotes and delivery planning customers need to reduce budget surprises and build more reliable project estimates.
After five straight considerable upward revisions to the industry’s 2026 revenue outlook, our latest Forecast was comparatively quiet at the top line. Oil & Gas gave back some of its recent surge, but broad upgrades elsewhere kept the overall forecast moving slightly higher. Get your much more valuable sector-specific revenue forecasts here.
June wholesale sales gave back most of May’s gain, but remained 14.1% above a year earlier as inventories edged higher. The monthly pullback was concentrated in oil and gas, while sales across the rest of wholesale trade were nearly flat. Get all the key figures and trend charts here.
NAW Research suggests manufacturers want distributors to communicate more and plan more strategically. Distributors, meanwhile, are asking for many of the same things from suppliers. Explore commentary from both sides in the latest 2Q26 NAW-Baird Industrial Distribution Survey.
Amazon will automatically reimburse customers in limited cases where it can trace tariff charges to specific purchases. New disclosures from Grainger and Global Industrial show that sizable refunds are also reaching industrial distributors and materially affecting reported margins.
Activity improved from a weaker June, with Ferguson's pending $1.6 billion purchase of FloWorks serving as the biggest transaction of the bunch, by far. Get our rundown of every deal we published during July, along with our updated monthly deal count and breakdown of year-to-date transactions by product category.
Most distributors report stable supplier relationships over the past two years, while manufacturers report significantly greater improvement. See commentary and results from the latest 2Q26 NAW-Baird Industrial Distribution Survey.
In the fourth and final installment of this series, Bart Tessel explores why the next wholesale-distribution operating model is built on flow, better decisions and continuous adaptation.
Our latest update shows a fifth straight considerable upward revision to the broader industry's 2026 forecast, driven again by oil & gas and data center-fed electrical & electronics. Get your much more valuable sector-specific revenue forecasts here.
The company pointed to share gains alongside a modestly improving industrial backdrop. Here, we break down all the key figures and executive commentary from Fastenal’s 2Q26 and June financial reports.
Grainger’s eCommerce story started 30 years ago with the early move from catalog to web. Today, that head start has become a digital operating system spanning High-Touch Solutions, Endless Assortment, product data, AI and fulfillment scale. This third and final part of our Grainger deep dive explores the timeline and strategic levers Grainger has pulled to achieve its best-in-class digital offering.
QXO’s latest investor Q&A details how the building products distributor plans to turn Beacon, Kodiak and TopBuild into a connected platform built around procurement leverage, margin expansion, cross-selling and a multiyear technology rollout.
This third of our four-part series explores why LSS AI belongs in margin management before it belongs in the warehouse.
Activity was the lightest its been so far in 2026, both in activity and size of deals done. Get our rundown of every deal we published about during June, along with our updated monthly deal count and breakdown of year-to-date transactions by product category
City Electric Supply’s new Industrial Automation Solutions launch shows how a distributor can turn customer demand, supplier alignment and internal branch support into a new service platform. With more than 700 branches across North America, learn why and how CES created the new offering.
3M’s new customer-facing AI tool gives industrial users direct access to technical product expertise — a move that signals how manufacturers are using digital tools to get closer to end customers.
Grainger’s product advantage is not just SKU count. It is the company’s ability to curate complexity through merchandising discipline, supplier management, private label, standardization and product data. That’s the focus in the second of this three-part Grainger deep dive.
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