News Details

CHICAGO, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Grainger (NYSE: GWW), North America's leading distributor of facilities maintenance supplies, today announced the release of its 2009 catalog including nearly 240,000 maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products. Grainger spokesperson Mike Rowe, creator, executive producer and host of Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" is featured on the cover (for more information on this partnership see: http://www.grainger.com/mikerowe).

"Now more than ever, businesses and institutions of all sizes are counting on us to be the one-stop shop for all of their facilities maintenance product needs," said Mike Pulick, President, Grainger U.S. "We are committed to maintaining a broad array of inventory along with our excellent customer service throughout the economic downturn, so we can help our customers weather the storm and emerge stronger."

Grainger's 2009 catalog features 64,000 new items over last year's offering (http://www.grainger.com/productexpansion). The product expansion means that Grainger is even better positioned to help customers be more productive and efficient in maintaining their facilities. Easy access to a broad array of products enables customers to consolidate vendors and establish a local source for just-in-time inventory, lowering the total costs associated with maintaining, repairing or operating their facilities.

    Customer feedback drove the addition of more than:

    -- 8,000 items in the Electrical category;
    -- 15,000 products in Metalworking, which nearly doubles the current
       offering;
    -- 41,000 additional products across all product categories including
       Safety, Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning (HVAC), Fleet Maintenance
       and Material Handling.

"Our customers have told us they want access to the broadest product offering with high inventory availability at a fair price," said D.G. Macpherson, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain. "For more than 80 years we have been strengthening our supply chain network so that when our customers have an MRO need, we are poised and ready to address it quickly and accurately with a product solution."

Grainger's 2009 catalog features more than 3,900 pages of product and technical information with tools to help customers quickly find the products they need to keep their facilities up and running. Beyond the product expansion to the catalog, the company recently added 27,000 safety, material handling and other products to http://www.grainger.com/news bringing the total products available online to more than 300,000.

Media interested in obtaining an image of the catalog or learning more about Grainger's product expansion should call Robb Kristopher at 847-535-0879 or visit Grainger's Web site at http://www.grainger.com/news.

About Grainger

W.W. Grainger, Inc. (NYSE: GWW), with 2008 sales of $6.9 billion, is the leading broad line supplier of facilities maintenance products serving businesses and institutions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China and Panama. Through a highly integrated network including more than 600 branches, 18 distribution centers and multiple Web sites, Grainger's employees help customers get the job done.

Robb Kristopher
Director, Media Relations
+1-847-535-0879
robb.kristopher@grainger.com Both of W.W. Grainger, Inc.