Global Industrial Company, through its operating subsidiaries, distributes industrial equipment and supplies in North America going to market through a system of branded e-commerce websites and relationship marketers.
The company sells a wide array of industrial and maintenance, repair, and operation (‘MRO’) products, including its own Global Industrial Exclusive Brands, which are marketed in North America. These industrial and MRO products are manufactured by other companies. Some products are...
Global Industrial Company, through its operating subsidiaries, distributes industrial equipment and supplies in North America going to market through a system of branded e-commerce websites and relationship marketers.
The company sells a wide array of industrial and maintenance, repair, and operation (‘MRO’) products, including its own Global Industrial Exclusive Brands, which are marketed in North America. These industrial and MRO products are manufactured by other companies. Some products are manufactured for the company and sold as white label products, and some are manufactured to the company’s own design and marketed as private brand products under the trademarks: Global, GlobalIndustrial.com, Nexel, Paramount, Interion, and Absocold.
Accelerating the Customer Experience
The company's multi-year business strategy is focused on Accelerating the Customer Experience (‘ACE’). The ACE initiative, which guides the company’s actions across the business, and specifically in its customer end-to-end purchase, service, and delivery experience, has at its core the building of customer loyalty and trust by addressing unique customer needs through a responsive and tailored sales, product, and service experience. The company builds customer loyalty and trust through personalized and high-touch customer interactions that often feature strong one-to-one relationships. The company's digital and multi-channel sales model drives customer acquisition, and with rigorous vetting, it is able to identify opportunities for product category expansion, particularly private brand products. Category expansion with its customers drives repeat orders and increases their annual and average spend. The company maximizes customer satisfaction and loyalty by coupling close customer relationships with product expertise, efficient and competitive fulfillment and delivery, and exceptional customer service.
Products
The company’s broad product offering and focus on responsiveness to its customers is captured in its promise ‘We Can Supply That’. The company offers its customers a competitive assortment of leading products and services, a sales force with deep product knowledge and expertise, and timely and relevant industry and product content via The Knowledge Center. The company’s go-to-market strategy also focuses on leveraging its deep product knowledge and experience by seeking to expand its higher-margin private brand line of Global products by adding additional products and product categories. The company offers hundreds of thousands of brand name and private brand products available through its e-commerce sites and has access to many more additional long-tail products from its network of vendor partners. The company endeavors to expand and keep current the breadth of its product offerings to fulfill the increasingly wide range of product needs of its customers, and periodically remove certain products from its offering to improve efficiencies or to address vendor or market changes.
Sales and Marketing
The company markets its products primarily to business customers, which includes both for-profit and not-for-profit businesses, state, local, and private educational organizations, and government entities, including federal, state, and local municipalities. The company has an established multi-faceted direct marketing system and customer life cycle marketing program, which tends to begin with customer acquisition via keyword or branding search, supported by strategic account managers, leading e-commerce and account management tools, and deep pre- and post-sales product expertise, which are intended to drive customer retention and penetration, and to maximize sales. The company continuously evaluates and adjusts its marketing spend, as well as the organization of its selling resources in order to best service its existing customers, as well as to optimize customer acquisition.
Relationship Marketers
The company’s relationship marketers focus their efforts on its business customers by establishing a personal relationship between such customers and a Global Industrial account manager. The company’s sales force is made up of a wide range of broad-based and specialized account managers, including dedicated Public Sector Account Managers focusing on government, education, and other municipal customers, Commercial Account Managers focusing on business customers generally organized by end market or geography, and Strategic Account Managers focusing on its most complex enterprise accounts. The sales force is supported by Business Development Representatives, Territory Sales Managers, and other Subject Matter Experts who support the end-to-end customer life cycle management. With access to the records the company maintains, its relationship marketers are prompted with product suggestions to expand customer order values. The company also has the ability to provide such customers with electronic data interchange (‘EDI’) ordering and customized billing services, customer savings reports, and stocking of specialty items specifically requested by these customers. The company’s relationship marketers’ efforts are supported by e-mail campaigns and periodic catalog mailings, both of which are designed to generate inbound telephone sales, and visits to its interactive websites, which allow customers to purchase products directly online.
E-commerce
The company operates multiple e-commerce and informational sites, including: www.absocold.com; www.globalindustrial.com; www.globalindustrial.ca; www.indoff.com; www.industrialsupplies.com; and informational sites.
The company is continually upgrading the capabilities and performance of these websites in its significant markets. In 2022, the company launched a completely new globalindustrial.com e-commerce site in the United States designed to drive personalization to further improve the digital shopping experience. Since launch, the company’s primary focus has been to optimize the shopability of the site via enhancements to search, including bringing to market a new List View approach, which allows users to easily find and compare products. In addition, the company launched new capabilities allowing users to create repeat subscription purchases, as well as optimized options to identify related products that would enhance their product purchases.
The company’s internet sites feature hundreds of thousands of MRO and industrial and general business supplies. The company’s customers have around-the-clock, online access to purchase products, and it has the ability to create targeted promotions for its customers’ interests.
In addition to the company’s own e-commerce websites, it has partnering agreements with several of the largest internet shopping and search engine providers who feature its products on their websites or provide ‘click-throughs’ from their sites directly to it.
Competition
The company faces competition from large diversified MRO distributors, such as Uline Inc, Grainger Inc., MSC Industrial Direct Inc., Fastenal Inc., and other large retailers, including Amazon.
Environment, Health and Safety: Government Regulation
The company’s Environmental Health and Safety group is responsible for overseeing product safety and compliance programs and initiatives, including compliance with various EPA, FDA, and hazmat regulations that apply to certain of the products it offers.
Seasonality
Seasonality does have some effect on the company’s sales. Certain product lines are highly seasonal in nature, including HVAC products, snow removal products, and outdoor furniture and equipment. Given these trends, financial results tend to vary quarter to quarter, with sales and operating margin in the second and third quarters moderately higher than those in the first and fourth quarters (year ended December 31, 2024) respectively.
History
The company was founded in 1949. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1995. The company was formerly known as Systemax Inc and changed its name to Global Industrial Company in 2021.