Industrial Machinery Distributors NAICS 423830

Jul 30, 2025 - Manufacturing Contracted in June

• US factory activity – a driver of demand for parts, tools, and machines used by manufacturers – contracted in June for a fourth consecutive month as new orders and employment shrank at an accelerated pace, Bloomberg reports. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index inched up half a point in June to 49, according to the latest data. (Readings below 50 indicate contraction.) Weak demand and shrinking order backlogs help explain a faster rate of decline in factory employment. According to the Labor Department, the US manufacturing sector shed 7,000 jobs in June, for a total of 89,000 jobs lost over the past 12 months. The nine manufacturing industries reporting growth in June included (in order) Apparel, Leather & Allied Products, Petroleum & Coal, and Nonmetallic Mineral Products, while the fabricated metal products industry was among those industries reporting contraction.
• The Trump administration’s on-again, off-again tariff strategy is rippling through industrial manufacturing, significantly impacting production costs, supply chains, and overall competitiveness in the machinery and industrial equipment sector, Manufacturing.Net reports. The implementation of an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports, suspension of de minimis exemptions for Chinese shipments, and newly announced (and since delayed) 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, is causing confusion and requiring manufacturers to quickly adapt to mitigate potential cost spikes and supply disruptions. The higher costs for imported components and raw materials is particularly acute in industrial manufacturing, where steel, aluminum, machinery parts, and electronic components are key production inputs. The 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are increasing the cost of industrial machinery, construction equipment, and transportation infrastructure, saddling US manufacturers of heavy machinery with higher input costs for essential materials, according to Manufacturing.Net.

• Getting paid is easier when wholesaler-distributors migrate from manual, paper-based order-to-cash workflows to fully digital A/R Automation, according to a case study cited by the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW). Facing increasing competition and already thin margins, Duncan-Parnell, a North Carolina-based supplier to construction contractors, engineers, and surveyors, turned to B2B payment software provider Unified A/R with two objectives: reduce hard dollar A/R expenses related to customer payments by email or phone, and reduce the drain on personnel resources due to manual workflows for invoices, checks and payment reconciliation. After integrating A/R Automation the company reported realizing a 94% reduction in card acceptance fees, an 87% decline in A/R processing expenses, a 30% jump in A/R team productivity, and an 84% migration from customer card payments to ACH/eCheck payments, according to the NAW case study.
• Producer prices for machinery and supply wholesalers rose 6.8% in June compared to a year ago, after posting a flat previous June-versus-June annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Employment by the industry grew 1.8% year over year in May, while the average wage at industrial machinery and equipment merchant wholesalers was flat over the same period at $35.60 per hour, BLS data show. Producer prices and employment are at near record levels despite declining sales and rising inventories.