The article analyzing The Home Depot’s landmark acquisition of SRS Distribution was the top view-getter of 2024, but it wasn’t the only standout among our free articles content. As you’ll see below, several other accolade articles featuring distributors also garnered significant attention.

The article announcing the launch of our 2024 Top Distributors List ranked as the third most-read free article published in 2024, a piece promoting a spring podcast analyzing the Home Depot-SRS Distribution deal also garnered major attention.

With the recent election influencing industry dynamics, 2025 tariffs have become a concern for distributors. In his article, Stephan Liozu, Chief Value Officer at Zilliant, delves into the potential impact of tariffs on the distribution sector, while also offering distributors proactive pricing strategies for 2025. That piece made our top 10 just a few weeks after publishing on Dec. 4.

Here are the 15 most viewed free articles published on MDM during 2024. Nine of them were staff-written, with the other six contributed by subject matter experts.

MDM Podcast: A Home Depot-SRS Megadeal Breakdown – published April 3. Mike Hockett and Craig Webb break down the key details of the combination, why it makes sense for Home Depot and why this was likely the long-term play for SRS all along.

ERIKS North America is Now LGG Industrial. Here’s Why – published Feb 1. It follows several years of transformation for the distributor of fluid handling, sealing and material conveyance supplies and solutions.

MDM’s 2024 Top Distributors Lists Are Now Live – published June 13. Our highly anticipated annual feature is now available to view and download. Explore our 20 different lists to see distribution’s biggest movers and shakers.

Is Amazon a Distributor? The U.S. Government May Determine – published Feb. 2. Sources told the Wall Street Journal that a Consumer Protection Safety Commission vote could make Amazon liable for the safety of third-party products.

MDM Podcast: The Keys to Wesco’s Digital Initiatives – published Aug. 7. Wesco’s “all things digital” leader Akash Khurana joins us to discuss what digital transformation has meant for the electrical distributor, which ramped up its initiatives on that front upon its landmark 2020 acquisition of Anixter.

Brace Yourself: How the 2025 Tariffs Will Impact Distributors – published Dec. 4. The latest major industry disruption appears to be in the form of significant tariffs levied by the incoming Trump administration. Here’s a look at the factors likely to be at play and how to navigate them.

How 5 Distributor Technology Trends are Moving – published March 26. Jeremy Centner examines a handful of key technology drivers and what we can expect to see from them in the rest of 2024 and beyond.

In 2Q, Fastenal Had its Weakest Daily Sales Growth in 3 Years – published July 12. Weak fastener sales continue to weigh on overall results, though the company indicated that customer acquisition efforts remain encouraging.

Applico Releases 2024 Top 50 B2B Marketplace Report – published Jan. 29. The annual rankings feature shows the biggest changeup to the B2B marketplace landscape in the past 3 years.

What Distributors Should Know About PPE & Safety Equipment — published June 7. Check out this overview for distributors of what’s going on in the PPE, first aid kit, dropped object prevention and heat stress front.

The Path to Operational Excellence: Transforming Warehouses for the Future — published Jan. 19. Will Quinn explains how deploying a multi-tenant, cloud-based warehouse management system can help organizations meet today’s industry challenges.

Wesco Analysis, Pt. 1: Scale and Value Proposition — published July 11. Here’s the condensed, free version of the first in a three-part Premium series that examines the state of Wesco International and the strategic pillars powering the organization.

Here’s Which Distributors are “Great Place to Work” Certified — published July 19. We identified more than 40 distributors to garner the honor, which these firms are happy to use as a recruiting and retention tool.

The Keys to Finding Your Gross Margin Holy Grail — published Aug. 26. Still having gross margin problems despite investments in pricing software, ERP upgrades and talent? It usually boils down to two root causes. This piece maps out pricing-driven margin success.

MDM Podcast: A Breakdown of Fastenal’s Decade-Long “Big Pivot” — published Feb. 21. Following his three-part article series and MDM Case Study report, we had John Gunderson on the podcast for a deeper dive into Fastenal’s move from a company dependent on a nationwide branch network to one that emphasizes embedded customer service.

Oldies but Goodies

These five blogs were published before 2024 but were still among the most-viewed free blogs on MDM this year. Their continued traction shows the consistent value of their content.

Here’s Where Distributors Rank on Forbes’ 2023 List of America’s Largest Private Companies – published Nov. 28, 2023. See which industrial, commercial and building supply distributors charted on Forbes’ annual list of the largest privately-owned companies by revenue.

The 4 Phases Needed to Develop a Successful Business Plan – published Jan. 5, 2021. Develop a strategic plan that allows you to be intentional in your actions through introspection, idea generation, execution and ongoing evaluation, according to Channel Marketing Group’s David Gordon.

MDM’s 2023 Top Distributors Lists Are Now Live – published June 8, 2023. Get all the need-to-know info about our annual rankings of North America’s biggest market movers across 17 different industries — now available for all to view.

Fastenal’s Big Pivot, Pt. 3: Investments, Line Expansions & Digital Growth – published Nov. 30, 2023. In the last of his three-part detective series, John Gunderson examines the role that Fastenal’s investments, product line expansions and digital growth have played to drive a decade-long performance increase.

Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement: Strategies to Foster Innovation and Growth – published Sept. 18, 2023. Will Quinn reflects on a career that has seen organizations embrace continuous improvement and those that haven’t. The former tend to outperform the latter, and here’s what it looks like.

Here’s our top free blogs of 2023