Fastenal Co. reported fastener sales increased 4% to $460.5 million (32.5% of overall sales) in the opening quarter of 2021.

“Growth in fastener products reflected further improvement in demand among traditional industrial and construction customers and an easy comparison with respect to March 2021, which came against a year earlier period that experienced the onset of pandemic-related weakness and a contraction in fastener product growth,” the company stated.

Fastener growth began to outpace non-fastener growth toward the end of the quarter. During March, fastener sales climbed 14% compared to 3.2% growth for PPE.

However, fastener product margin declined “due to faster growth among larger customers and purchases outside our traditional supply chain as a means of navigating supply chain challenges.

Consolidated Q1 sales rose 3.7% to $1.42 billion, while operating income gained 3.3% to $280.3 million and net earnings improved 3.9% to $210.6 million.

“The overall impact of product pricing on net sales in the first quarter of 2021 was 60 to 90 basis points,” Fastenal stated. “Pressures related to product cost inflation are rising, however, and we anticipate taking pricing actions in the second quarter of 2021 to mitigate these effects.”

Fastenal signed 4,683 weighted Fastenal Managed Inventory devices in Q1, bringing the company’s installed weighted FMI device count up 7.5% to 85,157 at the end of March.

During Q1, 34.8% of Fastenal sales were generated digitally by a combination of transactions through FMI (FAST Vend, FAST Bin, and FAST Stock) plus e-commerce sales.

In the past year, Fastenal reduced its total FTE employee headcount by 1,141, reflecting “a decline in our in-market FTE employee headcount of 1,011, as well as declines in headcount at our distribution centers and manufacturing operations to reflect lower throughput.”

The company opened two branches during Q1 and closed 46 branches. Web: Fastenal.com