Fastenal points to trio of e-milestones

Winona, Minn.-based Fastenal celebrated a trifecta of major milestones this week. Chief among them: crossing the $1 billion mark in e-commerce revenue within a single calendar year.

The building products distributor also celebrated achievements. For its FAST Solutions program: surpassing 100,000 active Fastenal Managed Inventory (FMI) Technology devices within customer sites and, 1,000 Onsite partnership programs.

“It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come, especially over the past five years as we positioned eCommerce to strengthen our strategic partnerships,” said Kirk Talmontas, Fastenal’s vice president of e-commerce. “It’s a testament to the innovation and dedication of all the team members who have made this happen.”

Fastenal’s e-commerce platform officially launched more than 20 years ago, but historically it represented a relatively small share of the company’s overall business. That changed about five years ago with a strategy positioning eCommerce as a critical component of the company’s high-tech, high-touch service model.

The company says its approach was not to lower costs, but to use its e-commerce platform to identify opportunities to migrate customer spend from a transactional (and, for the customer, higher-cost) online environment to a more strategic and efficient environment anchored by the company’s Onsite and FMI programs.

This focus on big-picture value creation has accelerated Fastenal’s e-commerce revenue growth, according to the company. In 2017, the company’s e-commerce sales were $245 million, representing 5.5% of total company sales. After hitting the $1 billion milestone in October, Fastenal’s e-commerce sales represent 17.4% of total company year-to-date sales, and 19.9% of its October 2022 sales.

“We don’t often think of e-commerce as our primary go-to-market strategy, but it’s become a vital part of our ‘digital footprint’ – the technology we provide to streamline and illuminate the supply chain,” added Dan Florness, president and CEO of Fastenal. “Thanks to the hard work of the entire Blue Team, we’re taking eCommerce in new directions in our industry and finding new ways to create value for our customers.”