Fastenal saw overall sales grow in its fiscal Q1, in large part due to its growing “digital footprint,” but it noted macroeconomic forces —  notably tied to tariffs and war — creating challenges in the quarter.

Fastenal describes its digital footprint as “a combination of our sales through FMI (FASTStock, FASTBin, and FASTVend) plus that portion of our eBusiness sales that does not represent billings of FMI services.”

Its fiscal Q1 ended March 31, about a month after the U.S. and Israel began their war on Iran. Because of supply chain disruptions resulting from the war, the price of a barrel of crude oil reached $112 in April. On Feb. 3, it was about $60, according to historical data from Trading Economics. The war has led carriers to implement shipping surcharges. Similarly, Amazon has announced fuel and logistics surcharges for sellers using its fulfillment options.

Between oil prices and tariffs, Fastenal has had to adjust its pricing strategy accordingly. Although the war on Iran only impacted about a third of Fastenal’s Q1, it built on an already uncertain macroenvironmental backdrop.

How tariffs, war-related uncertainty affected Fastenal pricing in Q1 2026

On the company’s earnings call with investors in April, CEO Daniel Florness gave an example of pricing increases tied to that war.

“There are some commodities right now, if you’re trying to source nitro gloves, good luck because the cost of that has gone through the roof in the last 60 days as a result of what’s going on in the Middle East,” Florness said. “But what we’re really aggressively doing in the marketplace is arming our customers and our teams with information to make trade-offs.”

Florness told investors that nitrile gloves are “not the biggest product line we sell, but it’s a meaningful product line that we sell. That price is going crazy because it’s all petroleum based.”

The petroleum content in a product directly affects its price, Florness explained.

“You’re seeing percentages that make some of these tariff percentages we talked about in recent years looks small,” Florness said.

He also noted uncertainty around a Supreme Court ruling surrounding refunds on tariffs. Relatedly, he said there has been “fatigue” in the last 12 months around “pricing actions that have been happening as supply chains have become more costly.”

Tariff costs slow Fastenal growth in Q1

Chief financial officer Max Tunnicliff said “the broader macro environment remains uneven and in some areas, uncertain.”

“While trade and tariff uncertainty continues to be part of the backdrop, most customers are viewing this uncertainty primarily as a cost and planning issue rather than a demand issue,” Tunnicliff said. “As a result, activity levels remain healthy, and we continue to see solid engagement across our customer base.”

Although the macro environment “remains unpredictable,” he said, Fastenal sees stability in its “diverse customer base, focus on key accounts and ongoing strategic initiatives.”

Still, tariff-related costs “moved through the P&L faster than our pricing.” In other words, Tunnicliff said, those costs fell short of Fastenal’s target by 0.4%.

“Even the refund noise, once again, it’s a very small amount of our total business and our total tariffs,” Tunnicliff said.

He added that pricing changes were not enough to offset inflation. Tunnicliff said Fastenal pricing execution progressed in the quarter, but “did not move quickly enough” largely because of tariffs.

“As you can imagine, tariff uncertainty added additional challenges,” Tunnicliff said. “In many cases, customer conversations and pricing actions took longer than usual as customers worked through their own planning assumptions. In others, these conversations were delayed as customers and suppliers await further direction on tariff changes and potential refunds.”

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube.