Zoro.com, the U.S.-based unit of Grainger’s online-only Endless Assortment segment – supplies, equipment, and tools – caters to smaller customers with less complex operations. The eCommerce business has reached the $1 billion sales mark for the first time in a calendar year.

Zoro.com president Kevin Weadick said, “Zoro exists to make our customers’ lives easier. And this achievement is a testament to the ways we continue to help small businesses find and buy more of what they need in one place. There is nothing but opportunity for Zoro to continue to grow.”

A subsidiary of W.W. Grainger, Inc., Zoro.com launched in May 2011 with 20 team members and 180,000 items. Now, with more than 600 team members, Zoro.com continues to expand and has grown to offer more than 11 million unique products.

In a recent earnings call, Grainger, the biggest public distributor of maintenance repair and operations (MRO) products, attributed eCommerce growth to Zoro’s 10% increase in its number of SKUs and to its competitive position in selling to business customers not targeted by other sellers of MRO products that companies use to operate their facilities.

“We’ve seen nice increases in average order value” at Zoro, Grainger CEO DG Macpherson said on an earnings call. “We expect that to continue to get a little better as we continue to refine our processes to get more repeat business from those business customers.” Macpherson added that Zoro was increasing its number of large customers as well as its core market of small and mid-sized companies.