After daily sales accelerated throughout 2024’s third quarter, Fastenal appeared primed for continued growth momentum into 4Q, but the company’s October sales report showed that wasn’t quite the case.

The Winona, MN-based distributor of industrial, safety and construction supplies shared its October sales information on Nov. 6, which showed continued weakness in its namesake Fasteners category, while healthy growth continued in Safety and Other.

The Big Picture

• The October report showed that daily sales increased 2.8% year-over-year, decelerating from September’s year-high 3.2%. Still, it was the company’s second-best month of 2024. Overall, Fastenal posted October total sales of $693 million that were up 7.5% year-over-year, which included an additional selling day vs. a year earlier.
• U.S. daily sales growth held steady month-to-month, decelerated in Canada/Mexico and accelerated in the rest of international
• Daily sales growth continued in the company’s top two end markets of Heavy Manufacturing and Other Manufacturing, but decelerated in Non-Residential Construction and Reseller
• A growing portion of Fastenal’s largest national account customers saw daily sales growth vs. September, while a slightly smaller portion of in-market locations had the same. Growth from non-national accounts accelerated from September.

Overall, October was another soft month by Fastenal’s historical standards and a modest slowdown from September. Baird Equity Research’s Industrial Distribution unit had forecast 3.9% October growth.

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MDM’s Take

Fastenal is the only publicly-traded industrial distributor that shares a monthly sales report, making it a good barometer for the overall health and demand status for the markets it serves. After recently bottoming out at 0.5% daily sales growth in July, August and September’s acceleration seemed to signal momentum in broader industrial demand for categories of fasteners, MRO, general industrial, safety and construction supply that Fastenal serves. And while October’s deceleration doesn’t completely negate that, it suggests that the North American industrial economy is still less than lukewarm.

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Go Deeper

Here’s the breakdown of Fastenal’s October 2024 sales report and how each metric compared with September:

October Daily Sales by Geography, Year-Over-Year:

• United States – 83.4% of sales: +2.3% (+2.3% in Sept.)
• Canada/Mexico – 13.5% of sales: +4.2% (+8.3% in Sept.)
• Rest of World – 3.1% of sales: +9.2% (+5.3% in Sept.)

October Daily Sales by Product Line:

• Fasteners – 30.2% of sales: -2.0% (-3.3% in Sept.)
• Safety – 22.5% of sales: +5.8% (+7.5% in Sept.)
• Other – 47.3% of sales: +5.1% (+5.9% in Sept.)

October Daily Sales by Customer End Market: 

• Heavy manufacturing – 42.9% of sales: +3.1% (+1.0% in Sept.)
• Other manufacturing – 31.9% of sales: +4.9% (+7.5% in Sept.)
• Non-residential construction – 8.4% of sales: -4.9% (+0.9% in Sept.)
• Reseller – 4.9% of sales: -10.1% (-6.2% in Sept.)
• Other – 11.9% of sales: +9.4% (+7.3% in Sept.)

October Daily Sales by Customer Category: 

• National accounts: +5.0% (+7.0% in Sept.)
• 61.0% of Top 100 national accounts were growing (60.0% in Sept.)
• Non-national accounts: +5.0% (-2.0% in Sept.)
• 49.7% of in-market locations were growing (51.5% in Sept.)
• FMI: +7.0% (+10.0% in Sept.)
• eBusiness: +27.0% (+27.0% in Sept.)

October Headcount

Fastenal ended October with a total headcount of 23,651, up 0.6% from September and up 2.5% year-over-year. Full-time selling headcount of 15,032 was down 0.6% from September and up 2.5% year-over-year.