Fastenal crosses the $1 billion mark

Fastenal moved ahead in the third quarter, netting more than $1 billion thanks to higher unit sales and other favorable trends.

Net sales came in at $1.01 billion, up 1.8% year-over-year. However, net earnings were down 7.0% to $126.9 million.

"The increase in net sales in the periods noted for 2016 and 2015 came primarily from higher unit sales," said the company in a statement. "The higher unit sales resulted primarily from increases in sales at existing store locations and to a lesser degree the opening of new store locations in the last several years. Net sales were also impacted by some price deflation in our fastener products, which was a drag on growth. Our growth in net sales was not meaningfully impacted by the introduction of new products or services, with one exception. Over the last several years, our industrial vending initiative has stimulated faster growth with a subset of our customers."

The company also reduced its headcount by 430 people (or 3.2%) in its stores. "The continued softness of the North American industrial economy has caused us to more intensively scrutinize our full- and part-time staffing levels outside of these initiatives. Indeed, after increasing our total headcount every quarter during 2015, it has declined during every quarter of 2016," explained the company in a statement.

Fastenal also opened 35 stores during the first nine months of 2016, up from 13 in the year-ago period. However, it closed or consolidated 99 stores during that time; 90% of the stores closed were in close proximity to another Fastenal store, and 85% had leases expiring within 18 months.

As for national account signings, the nine-month period brought 144 new contracts in 2016, up from 131 in the year-ago period.