Online sales are pouring out fast at Ferguson Enterprises, the North American unit of plumbing and heating equipment distributor Wolseley plc.

“E-commerce sales in Ferguson over the last 12 months amounted to $3 billion,” John Martin, United Kingdom-based Wolseley’s group chief executive and executive director, said in a fiscal second-quarter conference call with stock analysts last week, according to a transcript provided by Seeking Alpha. He didn’t provide year-earlier e-commerce sales, but noted that Ferguson’s online sales over the prior 12 months had reached 21% of its total sales and were on pace to grow at an annual rate of more than 20%.

Based in Newport News, Va., Ferguson sells to industrial, commercial and consumer markets and is No. 54 in the B2B E-Commerce 300, which ranks companies on their annual web sales. About two-thirds of its e-commerce sales are to businesses. It operates the B2B site FergusonOnline.com and also sells to businesses through e-procurement software that customers use to manage spending, and through punchout catalogs that let buyers link from procurement software to approved sections of Ferguson’s B2B e-commerce site. The company processes its online retail sales through shop.Ferguson.com and a sister site, Build.com.

Reflecting the strength of Ferguson as its “most significant” brand in its largest market, the United States, Wolseley has decided to change its corporate name to Ferguson plc from Wolseley plc, effective July 31, 2017, Martin said. It will continue to use the Wolseley name in the U.K. and Canada, where that brand is well recognized, he added. Coinciding with the name change, Frank Roach will retire as chief executive of Ferguson Enterprises; he’ll be succeeded by Kevin Murphy, who has served as chief operating officer of Ferguson Enterprises for the past 10 years.

Martin commented during the conference call about the importance of e-commerce to the company’s future.

“It’s our strategy to have the best transactional e-commerce capability in the industry,” he said, noting that the company recently upgraded its e-commerce platform for the B2B site FergusonOnline.com on Oracle Corp.’s Oracle Commerce software. “This is increasingly becoming a source of competitive advantage over smaller regional competitors.”

Martin said key improvements to FergusonOnline include personalized recommendations of products and related accessories, and pricing quotes that customers can download to their own software systems for review. He added that the upgraded site will “provide us with more flexibility and agility to support the rapid deployments of new functionality.”

For the second fiscal quarter ended Jan. 31, 2017, Wolseley reported:

• Revenue in the U.S. market grew at the fastest rate across the company, at 6.7% year over year, as total revenue increased 4.8%. Revenue increased 3.6% in the U.K. and inched up 0.3% in Canada and Central Europe, but declined 1.5% in the Nordic markets. The company did not break out revenue figures for the quarter.
• Revenue in the U.S. market for the Ferguson plumbing and heating business increased 5.4%, even with a 1.8% drop in prices. While sales to both commercial and residential customers “continued to grow well,” sales to industrial customers, which represented 10% of Ferguson’s revenue, were flat.

For the first half ended Jan. 31, 2017, Wolseley reported:

• E-commerce sales of 1.40 billion pounds ($1.75 billion), 17% of total revenue;
• Total revenue of 8.461 billion pounds ($10.57 billion), up 24.5% from 6.795 billion pounds ($8.49 billion) a year earlier;
• U.S. revenue growth of 9.9%;
• Gross profit of 2.412 billion pounds ($3.10 billion), up 25.4% from 1.924 billion pounds ($2.40 billion);
• Net profit of 216 million pounds ($270 million), down 19.1% from 267 million pounds ($333 million).

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