Of all the topics we cover here on MDM, none are more evergreen than the economy. It may not be as exciting as cutting-edge technology like AI and automation, but distribution’s performance has always largely hinged on how the economy is performing. It’s why we constantly share monthly economic indicator news and our monthly MDM Forecast which provides an updated snapshot of full-year revenue expectations for the current and next year within 19 different wholesale trade sectors.

Additionally, our 2022 Economic Benchmarks for Wholesale Distribution (EBWD) served as an in-depth source of economic information across those 19 industry sectors, providing quarterly forecasts, inventory levels, sales forecasts and other critical data.

But we want to take our economic reporting further.

We are currently rebranding our EBWD report as the MDM Economic Outlook with both a new 2024 report set to publish later in July, followed by quarterly reports. These reports will provide a wealth of timely, relevant economic data — both at a broad view and at a level specific to the different wholesale distribution sectors.

The data found within comes from the U.S. Census Bureau, but we’ve done the legwork to package it all in one place to save you the substantial time it would otherwise take to navigate to the data most relevant for your business.

Besides forecasting, these reports will provide a snapshot of what each industry sector looks like today — how much of the total wholesale distribution sector revenue each comprises; the number of companies each has; each sector’s average gross margin; how its employment size has changed year-to-year; and much more.

These reports will equip you with all of the economic context you need to make informed decisions about your operations and how your company compares with industry averages.

While these reports will be available in the MDM Store for any reader to purchase, our Premium readers get them as part of their subscription, as so members of NAW. These reports are in addition to our quarterly MarketPulse and M&A reports — which we’ll have for you later in July and August.

Also, while we didn’t include it in our June Premium Monthly PDF just due to timeliness, our latest monthly MDM Forecast recap piece can be found here, published June 12.

As always, we thank you for being a Premium reader and are happy to provide you with the best of MDM’s content.

By the time you download this issue of Premium Monthly, we will have just hosted our virtual 2024 Distribution Sales Summit on July 10, which provided six hours of insights into how customer behavior is changing; what agile sales teams are doing differently to win in distribution; innovations and tools that leading sales teams are using today; and more. 

If you missed it, it’s available to view on-demand through the rest of the summer.

Next up is our annual marquee in-person event, SHIFT, set for Sept. 11-13 in Denver. This 2.5-day event has proven extremely valuable for distribution leadership teams to equip themselves with education around strategic levers to pull around pillars of h

Meanwhile, MDM’s June 2024 Premium Monthly edition is now available to download. Premium subscribers can do so from this link or from their Premium dashboard. This issue addressed what went wrong with MSC Industrial Supply’s web pricing realignment and what they’ve done about it; the role of diversification and fragmentation in our 2024 Top Distributors feature; using analytics to build profit; and where things stand on the disruption front from non-traditional players in the distribution room.

Not a Premium subscriber? You can change that here.

Find our May Premium Monthly issue here.