The first quarter is down and there are three financial quarters left in the year for Fastenal Co., a big public distributor of industrial and construction supplies. But Fastenal’s ongoing push for more digital sales is right on schedule — and still a big corporate strategic priority, says CEO Dan Florness.

“As we have seen in prior quarters, we continue to see really strong growth in ecommerce. Recall that last fall, that broke 20% of revenue for the first time. I believe this quarter we are at about 22%,” Florness told analysts on the company’s recent Q1 earnings call.

Fastenal digital sales

For the quarter ended March 31, total sales for Fastenal grew to $1.859 billion. That’s up 9% year over year from $1.704 billion in Q1 of 2022. Fastenal ecommerce grew about 48% year over year and represented 21.9% of all sales. Based on these metrics, Digital Commerce 360 projects that Fastenal ecommerce sales totaled $407.1 million in the first quarter.

Fastenal includes in its digital footprint ecommerce sales along with customer transactions processed through its FMI inventory management programs, including:

• FASTtock
• FASTbin
• FASTVend internet-connected vending machines

Fastenal’s digital sales footprint in the first quarter of 2022 represented 54.1% of total sales. That’s a 47% increase from sales in Q1 2022.

“We believe the data that is created through our digital capabilities enhances product visibility, traceability, and control that reduces risk in operations and creates ordering and fulfillment efficiencies for both ourselves and our customers,” the company says. “As a result, we believe our opportunity to grow our business will be enhanced through the continued development and expansion of our digital capabilities.”

Digital commerce will remain a big part of Fastenal doing business going forward, Florness says.

“If you roll all those pieces together, our digital footprint came in at 54% of sales versus 47% a year ago. And in the month of March, excuse me, we hit 55%. And our goal is to drive that to 65% later in the year,” he told analysts. “Time will tell if we are able to accomplish that with a long-term goal of — we believe that number is about 85% of our business is going through some type of digital footprint.”

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