Growth Is Back. Inventory Is the Question Mark.
Distributor sales are running strong. Data center construction continues to fuel growth. Aerospace is surging. And early expectations for 2027 are starting to take shape.
But there’s another number getting attention: distributor inventory is climbing to levels not seen in years.
Is that simply a response to stronger demand, or an early signal manufacturers and distributors need to watch?
Brendan Breen and Cleveland Research’s Evan Willman unpack what the latest distributor data is telling us.
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About Top 3 in 5:
Through ISA’s partnership with the Cleveland Research Company, we’re able to bring ISA members the results of a monthly survey of industrial distributors to get a pulse on what’s going on in our industry. This quantitative data, supplemented with qualitative data collected by conversations with industry professionals, provides a great benchmark of the market, allowing us to get into the drivers of why things are changing and helping us identify changes more quickly than the PMI or ISM.
