Sales to home builders and other “Pro” customers helped The Home Depot Inc. increase third quarter internet sales 17% year over year, as total sales increased 6.1%, the retail chain said yesterday.

The home improvement retailer, No. 7 in the B2B E-Commerce 300, says its Pro customers account for more than 40% of total sales, amounting to about $9.262 billion out of $23.154 billion for its fiscal third quarter ended Oct. 30, 2016. Although the retailer doesn’t break out online sales to Pro customers, it says total online sales were 5.6% of total sales in the quarter, or $1.296 billion, up from $1.108 billion a year earlier.

Executives say sales to builders, contractors and other Pro customers are helping to drive up sales across several categories. “Once again, we saw strong outperformance in many Pro-heavy categories as Pro sales grew faster than the company’s average comp,” executive vice president of merchandising Ted Decker said on a conference call with stock analysts yesterday, according to transcript from Seeking Alpha. “This led the strong comps in commercial and industrial lighting, fencing, plywood, pressure-treated decking and interior doors.”

CEO Craig Menear added on the conference call that Home Depot continues to make strides in serving businesses as well as consumers that shop online. With more than 1,600 Home Depot store locations now in the company’s Buy Online, Deliver From Store program, “our on-time delivery service is now exceeding our target and we have seen double-digit increase in the number of deliveries,” he said, adding: “We think that that is beginning to have a positive impact and making it easier for our Pro customers as well as DIY customers to engage and shop with The Home Depot.” He added that the company figures that “roughly 50%” of the increase in deliveries through its Buy Online, Deliver From Store program is incremental sales the retailer would not have received without the program.

Menear said Home Depot is also beginning to see sales growth from increased use among Pro customers of its private-label credit card and its related Pro Xtra loyalty program, which emails business customers exclusive pricing discounts and other promotions, and tools for managing their spending by projects and job sites. He noted that Home Depot now has more than 900,000 Pro customers making purchases with a Home Depot credit card, and that more than 20% of them have signed up for the Pro Xtra program. Menear noted that the loyalty program for Pros was not yet “materially impacting” revenue, but that he expects it eventually will.

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Menear added that Home Depot continues to improve how it allocates product assortments across three distribution centers built over the last few years for online orders—in Troy Township, Ohio; Perris, Calif.; Locust Grove, Ga.—to enable it to deliver the products customers need to almost any location in the United States within two days with standard ground shipping. While also improving its supply chain systems through such as initiatives as Supply Chain Sync, “we’ve been able to reduce delivery costs and improve overall customer experience,” he said.

Carol Tomé, chief financial officer and executive vice president of corporate services, said Home Depot also benefitted from its acquisition last year of Interline Brands, which has several e-commerce sites catering to business customers and contributed $300 million of the company’s growth in the 12 months ending Oct. 30.

Interline includes more than 10 specialized websites including SupplyWorks.com, a supplier of facility maintenance products; Sexauer.com, serving institutions; Wilmar.com and e-Musa.com, serving multi-family housing facilities; and e-Barnett.com and e-HardwareExpress.com, serving residential customers. Home Depot is integrating those sites into Home Depot’s main website, HomeDepot.com.

For third quarter ended Oct. 30, 2016, Home Depot reported:

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Net sales of $23.154 billion, up 6.1% from $21.819 billion a year earlier;

Gross profit of $8.042 billion, up 6.3% from $7.565 billion;

Comp-store sales up 5.5% worldwide and 5.9% in the United States alone;

Net earnings of $1.969 billion, up 14.1% from $1.725 billion.

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For the nine months ended Oct. 30, it reported:

Net sales of $72.388 billion, up 7.2% from $67.539 billion a year earlier;

Gross profit of $24.760 billion, up 7.1% from $23.109 billion;

Net earnings of $6.213 billion, up 12.2% from $5.538 billion.

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