Home centers and building material and supplies dealers sold a combined $304.62 billion worth of goods in 2016, a 5.9% increase from the previous year, fresh Census Bureau data shows. Comparisons with ProSales 100 firms also suggest the biggest pro dealers accelerated their growth faster than the group as a whole.
The government’s Annual Retail Trade Survey doesn’t break out LBM operations on their own. Instead, it groups them in one of three ways: hardware stores, paint and wallpaper stores, and building material and supplies dealers. That third category thus lumps in big-box operations like The Home Depot and Lowe’s with independent LBM operations.
Of that $304.62 billion, the members of the 2016 ProSales 100 accounted for $49.36 billion. Meanwhile, The Home Depot had sales of $94.6 billion in its fiscal year ending in January, Lowe’s posted $65 billion in sales in 2016, and Forbes estimates Lowe’s sales totaled $9.5 billion that year. That brings the total for the big boxes to $169.1 billion. Subtract that number plus the PS100’s $49.36 billion from the total and it shows all other dealers and home centers sold roughly $86.16 billion worth of building materials last year.
ProSales 100 members have recorded bigger annual sales increases than the larger grouping every year since 2010 as well as an 2003 through 2005. But once the housing crash began around 2006, PS100 dealers sputtered, and through 2009 their sales declined more sharply than for the big boxes and dealers combined. That makes sense, given how the larger group is more closely connected to consumer sales while the PS100 depends more heavily on home builders.
Outside the pro dealer space, hardware store sales increased 2.3% last year to $23.62 billion, while sales at paint and hardware stores rose 6.9% to $11.45 billion.
