W.W. Grainger Inc. sees a slowing business economy ahead. But for now, total sales and ecommerce, which Grainger calls its high-touch business, are doing just fine.

W.W. Grainger sales Q2

For the second quarter ended June 30, Grainger grew sales to $4.18 billion. That’s up 10% from $3.83 billion in the second quarter of 2022. Net earnings were $490 million vs. $389 million in the year-ago period.

Grainger, a prominent maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products distributor , also reported good results in its various digital sales channels. Web-only sales in its Endless Assortment segment, including Zoro.com in the United States and Japan-based MonotaRo.com, grew 4.5 % in the second quarter. That’s up to $751 million from $719 million in Q2 of 2022.

Grainger is No. 11 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest online retailers in North America by web sales.

Zoro and MonotaRo

The company’s High Touch business grew to $3.355 billion. That’s up 10% year over year from $3.053 billion. The business segment includes full-service sales through the company’s U.S. flagship Grainger.com, Canada-based Grainger.ca, and its sales agents.

“We continue to see strong results, with daily sales up 19.4% compared to the third quarter of 2021,” says chief financial officer Dee Merriwether. “We saw a broad-based double-digit growth across all geographies and over 20% growth with both midsized and large customers in the U.S.”

Grainger also continues to build out its Endless Assortment business, she told analysts on the Q2 earnings call.

“We show the continued growth of the Zoro SKU portfolio, now at over 10.3 million SKUs. You’ll see a more modest increase between the second and third quarter as Zoro is offering SKUs that could not meet our service level expectations,” Merriwether said. “We continue to target around 2 million SKU additions in 2022 and have a robust pipeline to meet that goal as we finish the year.”

In general, Grainger sees slowing business in some industries. But it says diversity in the customer base it serves will keep sales growing.

“We continue to experience a dynamic market, with some industries still on the upswing, some that are stabilized, and others that are trending down,” says CEO DG Macpherson. “And while our customers will face different levels of impact as we navigate through this inflationary period, we know that Grainger wins because of our ability to add tangible value to our customers’ operations through inventory management, digital solutions, and product substitutes.”

Check back for more earnings reports.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.