Each quarter, Industrial Supply Trends, in conjunction with William Blair, conducts a quarterly Pulse of Industrial Supply survey. We gain input from a wide array of distributors and manufacturers so that we can correlate performance and then share with you the results.

Survey respondents received a copy of the results in early July.

Industrial Supply Channel … a Mosiac

Now that the publicly held distributors have shared their performance, and each is somewhat skewed based upon their business model and the fact that much of their business is derived from Fortune 500 / 1000 companies, we’re sharing the results.

It’s important to note that, while Grainger, Fastenal, MSC, Applied Industrial, Motion, Global Industrial are important participants in the industrial supply channel, there are many independent distributors in multiple verticals that define “the industrial supply channel.” They range from single branch “mom and pops” to members of NetPlus and other targeted marketing groups to regional independents , of whom many belong to AD’s Industrial group.

And while the new ISA Board attempts to represent diversity within the channel ecosystem, the element missing is the small distributor (which are frequently the ones in suburban / rural areas, are specialists, and are “steady eddies” for manufacturers although the frequently don’t get involved in associations based upon value proposition and/or a sense of not being wanted with initiatives tailored to larger companies.) As I say to some, “not everyone wants world domination.” They want 1-3 county domination!

You could say that the industrial supply industry is a mosaic.

2026 Q2 Pulse of Industrial Supply Results

• 60% of the distributor respondents were companies less than $50M with another 30% between $251-500M, hence providing a good view of the independent distribution channel. As expected, the national chains did not participate (but they report publicly.)
• Respondents focus on the metal working, industrial manufacturing, and the industrial safety segments.
• Distributors reported on a weighted average, a 4.95% revenue increase. The miss, from their initial projections for the quarter, could be macroeconomic impact, and reduced economic confidence.
• At the same time these distributors shared that pricing increased 4.4%, resulting in essentially a flat quarter.
• Categories reporting greater than 4% improvement include metal working, chemicals and adhesives, cutting tools, and abrasives.
• Distributors reported 14% of their sales are generated digitally, a dichotomy versus national chains and probably most indicative of a lack of customers with whom they are doing punchouts and/or EDI as well as vending machines.
• 1/3^rd of distributors reported that they were stocking less in Q2 than in Q1.
• Manufactures reported being up 9% with 57% of them growing more than 5%. This could tie to product category focus, growth / alignment with national chains, or offerings for specific high industrial growth markets, including data centers.
• These manufacturers shared that, on average, their price increases averaged 6.4% although 43% said their increases were over 9%. This results in a next of a 2.6% organic growth, still relatively anemic.

Click here to download the full report.

Look for the 2026 Q3 survey in just after Labor Day.