Chicago-based facilities maintenance distributor Grainger won’t be slowing its product expansion anytime soon. According to Fred Costello, vice president-product management, the strategy is a priority going forward.
 
This year, Grainger’s catalog is 64,000 SKUs thicker, or 33% larger than last year’s. Grainger now has 240,000 SKUs available in print, and 300,000 on its Web site. The goal of the product expansion is to fill gaps in its already broad offering and reach out to new customers, in an effort to become a "one-stop shop," Costello tells me.
 
MDM Publisher Tom Gale recently wrote in the Feb. 25 issue of MDM that Grainger has a history of building market share in downturns; Grainger’s going ahead with its aggressive product expansion while many companies are more apt to hunker down or delay big plans is one example of that.

Grainger did feel somewhat of a pinch in the fourth quarter (like everyone else), when it saw a decrease of 1 percent in sales from the prior-year period.
 
Read more on Grainger’s product expansion in the latest issue of MDM. “