HARDI released its monthly TRENDS report that shows average sales for HARDI distributor members increased by 11% in October.

The average annualized growth for the 12 months through October 2017 is 6.6%.

“The 11 percent gain this month vs. October 2016 was helped by one extra billing day and an easy prior-year comparison,” HARDI Market Research & Benchmarking Analyst Brian Loftus said.  “We had a slow start to the heating season with mild conditions in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions.”

“US consumers are finding themselves in an optimal economic situation consisting of rising real wages, low unemployment, low inflation, low interest rates, a rising stock market and relatively-low commodity prices,” HARDI Senior Economist Connor Lokar added.  “We expect consumer spending to accelerate through mid-2018 and this bodes well for HARDI members in 2018.”

The days sales outstanding (DSO), a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills, now is approaching 46 days. “The DSO is increasing over the past couple of months, but that is consistent with the normal seasonal pattern,” Loftus noted. “It is up a little from last year, but comparable to October 2014 and 2015.”