Fastenal – No. 12 on Industrial Distribution's 2015 Big 50 List – posted its sales information for February on Friday, showing a second-straight month of year-over-year daily sales increase.
The Winona, MN-based company had daily sales growth of 2.6 percent in February, continuing off of January's 3.3 percent gain. Total February sales of $321.3 million were a 7.7 percent increase over February 2015, which had one fewer selling day.
The sales growth streak is a welcome change for Fastenal, which had four straight months of year-over-year daily sales decline prior to January. Here's what Fastenal's year-over-year daily sales change has looked like over the past 7 months:
- February 2016 +2.6 percent
- January 2016 +3.3 percent
- December 2015 -3.8 percent
- November 2015 -1.1 percent
- October 2015 -0.8 percent
- September 2015 -0.3 percent
- August 2015 +1.6 percent
Fastenal's daily sales growth to manufacturing customers improved 1.5 percent in February compared to last year, while daily sales to non-residential construction customers were flat. In February 2015, daily sales growth to both customer segments grew 6.4 percent.
Daily sales of fastener products decreased by 0.5 percent in February compared to last year, while other sales increased 4.8 percent. In February 2015, daily fastener sales improved 4.7 percent, while other sales improved 12.0 percent.
Fastenal opened 11 new stores in February, bringing its total store count to 2,633 – four stores less than at the end of February 2015.
The company decreased its selling personnel headcount by 160, or 1.2 percent, in February to 13,007 – which was still 9.6 percent higher than a year earlier.
Fastenal said its 'Top 100' customer group – of which 50 percent had sales in Q4 2015 – has had sales growth of 59 percent and 53 percent in January and February, respectively.
