Distributors’ Sales Forecasts Look for Healthier Increases, According To EW Survey

Electrical distributors are feeling bullish about their sales prospects in 2006. Electrical Wholesaling’s 2006 Market Planning Guide, to be published later this month, is forecasting a 7.9 percent sales increase through electrical distributors for 2006, after a strong 9.6 percent 2005 increase.

Electrical distributors in the Pacific (+11.3 percent), Mountain (+11 percent) and West South Central (+9.9 percent) regions of the United States are most optimistic. Respondents in all other regions were forecasting an increase of at least 5 percent. Survey respondents reported an average sales-per-employee number of $482,756 for 2004. That’s substantially less than the $540,638 average-sales-per employee number for 2004 reported in Electrical Wholesaling’s Top 200 listing of the industry’s largest electrical distributors.

The Market Planning Guide survey asked electrical distributors for 2004 sales results, how sales for the first six months of 2005 compared to the first six months of 2004, predictions for the full-year 2005 and predictions for the full-year 2006. Electrical Wholesaling mailed 3,227 surveys on July 29, 2005, to its subscribers in the domestic United States with a title of chairman/president/vice president. The 385 usable surveys garnered a response rate of 12.7 percent.