NAED is releasing its brand new “Market & Product Overview Report “, which highlights the kinds of products sold as well as the customers who make up the market… NAED members completed the survey to provide a snapshot of the industry’s selling efforts. This year’s report has some new features too — benchmark comparisons to the 2017 survey results, leakage estimates, and information from the NAED Market Data Program and NAED PAR Report. Thanks to the generosity of Siemens, the entire report is now available to all NAED members for free.
One of the first takeaways from the “Market & Product Overview Report ” is the top five product categories sold. In 2017, they were breakers and load centers, fuses, cable ties, wire and cable, and light fixtures. But three years later, the top five changed almost entirely, with fuses, ballasts and accessories, conduit and fittings, duct and wire way, and electrical enclosures and boxes noted as top categories.
An interesting follow up to that is NAED asked members the reasons why they added new product lines over the past 12 months. Local rep efforts, customer requests, and profit margin all tied as the top reasons, followed by on-time delivery and ease to conduct business with them.
Distributor survey respondents reported 58% of customers requested a product specifically by brand name, which is up 3% from 2017. Distributors say that 54% of the time, they are successfully able to recommend a substitute product if they did not carry that specified brand.
NAED also asked about the 11 industry sectors that are discussed in the Economic & Industry Sector Outlook to see if there were increases in sales since January of 2020; it includes airline, automotive, data centers, education, and oil and gas. Only four sectors, hospital, multi-family housing, single-family housing, and supermarket/grocery saw increases during that time frame, according to respondents.
And, when asked about concerns with disintermediation compared to 2017, 43% of distributors today say they are either concerned or very concerned about manufactures skipping past distributors to sell their products. That is up from 28% four years ago.
You can see more results, including information on the percentage of sales that has leaked to DIY chains in 2021, and revenue growth for the past four years, by logging in here to download your free copy of the report for all NAED members.
More details can also be found at www.naed.org/market-overview. Thank you to all the participants of the survey and Siemens for supporting this effort.