W.W. Grainger Inc.’s web-only sales operations are gaining across various types of customers for its wide range of maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products.

For the third quarter, Grainger’s web-only Endless Assortment segment, including Zoro.com and Japan-based MonotaRO.com, grew 8.1% year over year to $791 million as the segment’s operating earnings surged 27.3% to $70 million.

Grainger shores up activity with various customer groups

Grainger’s executives said on the Q3 earnings call today the  Endless Assortment business getting more traction from various types of B2B customers, including enterprise companies as well as small and midsized businesses and even the recently weak B2C customer market.

Deidra “Dee” Merriwether, chief financial officer, W.W. Grainger Inc.

Endless Assortment saw “strong gains from core B2B customers, coupled with solid acquisition and repeat purchase rates for small and midsized businesses,” Dee Merriweather, senior vice president and chief financial officer, said on Q3 earnings call. She added, “The headwinds from non-core B2C and B2C-like customers continue to dissipate with sales to those customers roughly flat.”

By comparison, Q3 sales at Grainger’s other business segment, High-Touch Solutions — which includes sales through the flagship ecommerce site Grainger.com and sales agents — increased 3.3% to $3.52 billion.

Grainger’s total Q3 sales increased 4.3% to $4.39 billion.

Grainger sees gains with analytics and B2B shipments

D.G. Macpherson, chairman and CEO, said Grainger is looking forward to ongoing sales gains as the company proceeds with improvements in such areas as customer data analytics and B2B order shipments.

D.G. Macpherson, chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger

“We’ve launched new capabilities such as analytical tools that arm ourselves with better insights to data and drive more conversations for customers,” he said on the earnings call. “We’re also testing a generative AI model in a call center, which helps to scale out and equip our customer services [with] fast, relevant responses to help customers get what they need quickly and efficiently.”

Macpherson also called out Grainger’s supply chain operations and its recent distribution center network expansion, which he noted were “specifically to serve B2B customers and ship next-day complete orders.”

Grainger’s gross profit rises 3.9%

For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Grainger reported:

⦁ Net sales rose 4.3% to $4.39 billion

⦁ Gross profit increased 3.9% to $1.72 billion, resulting in a gross margin of 39.2%, down 3 basis points from the year-earlier quarter.

⦁ Net earnings attributable to W.W. Grainger Inc. rose 2.1% to $486 million.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Grainger reported:

⦁ Net sales increased 3.6% to $12.94 billion.

⦁ Gross profit increased 3.0% to $5.08 billion

⦁ Net earnings attributable to W.W. Grainger were flat at $1.43 billion.

Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s update on W.W. Grainger.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. [email protected].

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