Industrial Supply Trends Economic Snapshot – Q1 2025
This is the inaugural article for a series in ISA focusing on the top industries and products for industrial supply distributors from Kevin Coleman our collegue at Channel Marketing Group. Kevin has 30 years experience leading Market Intelligence teams for leading manufacturers such as Avaya, Philips Lighting, and Signify. Kevin will each quarter, profile a different industry or product…
Spotlight
Pricing on Your Industrial Website
Warning … there are solutions to help you break through paralysis! We wanted to share this article and add takeways and comments. Dimtry Kon founder…
Does your Industrial Data work for you?
That’s the question many senior executives ask themselves regularly about data is how to harness it for practical use? You have hundreds of thousands of…
MSC Industrial Series Parts 2 & 3 Overview
In our distributor series in collaboration with Modern Distribution Management we covered the “big” changes a leading distributor – MSC Industrial has been making to…
What Industrial channel trends are highlighted at ISA25?
If you look at the economic forecasts it appears that 2025 will be relatively flat to uncertain economically for the Industrial Channel. Historically when the…
Explore
MSC Industrial Series Parts 2 & 3 Overview
In our distributor series in collaboration with Modern Distribution Management we covered the “big” changes a leading distributor – MSC Industrial has been making to continue their journey from a “spot buy” distributor to a “Mission Critical” distributor. In Part 2 and Part 3 of the series we dove deep in MSC’s digital programs and mission critical initiatives. Behind MSC’s…
What Industrial channel trends are highlighted at ISA25?
If you look at the economic forecasts it appears that 2025 will be relatively flat to uncertain economically for the Industrial Channel. Historically when the market is slower growth the focus on how to grow with end customers by gaining more share is a key initiative. In looking at ISA25 this year I started a checklist of sessions I wanted…
How to Avoid Three Big B2B Distribution Digital Death Traps
As a distributor building a digital strategy and creating digital solutions, I’ve worked with advanced and basic software solutions. I’ve been fortunate to be on distribution teams and work with distribution clients over the past 15 years learning sometimes the hard way, the key mistakes to avoid on a digital journey. 1: Mistake of Investing in technology instead of talent…
Opinion: Industrial Tariff talk – Tips on how to prepare for wherever the market goes
This month has been an interesting one as a content provider for the Industrial Channel. We have been writing, crossing out, rewriting on the impact of tariff battles between the US, Canada, Mexico and China. We had a number of articles ready to publish then had to hit the stop button to react to another announced change. We have tariffs…
Industrial Distributors, Is eCommerce Important to Your Customers?
That’s the question many senior executives ask themselves regularly about eCommerce. They’ve invested much into their website. They’ve invested into product data. They’ve invested into people. They ask, does anyone care? Are we getting an ROI? I know I’m being, perhaps, a little facetious as intuitively many believe / understand that these investments are now expectations, however, it begs the…
Industrial Distributor: Year End Performance 2024 – AD, Fastenal and Grainger
Over the past few weeks, a number of national distributors have released their 2024 performance and earnings reports. AD, Grainger, Fastenal and others have made news. We’ve also talked to a number of manufacturers who see the “highlight” numbers and use them as benchmarks, so we’ve reviewed and sought to find some trends. Overall, business is improving or stable depending…
Opinion: Grainger Q4 and Year End Results…..Interesting
It’s Q4 earning season, providing distributors (and manufacturers) with an opportunity to benchmark their performance, gain insights (or confirmation) on what they are seeing in the market and possibly learn a little from publicly held companies. Grainger just released their Q4 and Full year results for 2024 which is always interesting to dive deep into their performance. Grainger is a…
MSC Industrial’s Big Pricing Reset is big news for Industrial Distribution
In Part 1 of the series and collaboration with Modern Distribution Management we covered the “big” changes a leading distributor – MSC Industrial is making to their pricing model. The latest distributor series I have written with MDM starts with a deep dive into MSC’s pricing changes. After a somewhat challenging 2024, the metalworking and MRO supplies distributor continues to…
