TEN MONTHS DO NOT A YEAR MAKE

摘要

This year's Big 50 industrial distributors had a great first 10 months in 2008. Then, in the last quarter, sales for most distributors literally fell off a cliff and continued that way into 2009.rnIn fact, if 2008 had ended in October, ID's Big 50 distributors would have been cheering their results. But 10 months do not a year make; that was particularly evident as sales for the last quarter of 2008 ended with a thud.rnSays Lawrence Wolfe, president of Production Tool Supply, number 28: "The first quarter of '08 was pretty strong, but then we started to see sales curtailing in mid-summer, particularly in the areas of capital equipment and machinery of any sort. It just dried up. By Christmas it was like the spigot was turned off, and it hasn't turned back on yet. We're hoping that the economic stimulus packages that are out there will do some good at some point in time, but I don't see that happening until the third or fourth quarter of 09."