A Birthday, CED, Rep Relations, Copper, Renewables and Theft

In other words, a little bit of everything to end the week!

• August marks ElectricalTrends’ two year anniversary. During this time we’ve had over 28,195 visits resuting in 39,241 page views from 13,525 unique visitors (all numbers are according to Google Analytics).
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  The posting with the most interest, over 2500 views, was our posting in September 2007 entitled “An IDEA with a Vision?” (which some still ask and others wonder about execution) and hopefully will be answered at the upcoming E-Biz Forum.

• We would like to thank you for your support and hope that ElectricalTrends is of value to you. If you don’t receive our updates automatically, be sure to subscribe in the box in the upper right hand corner. If you have ideas of other information you’d like us to share, or anything else, feel free to email us (David, Allen).
• CED of North Charleston, SC, was recently in the news, being honored with a 2009 Secretary of Defense Freedom Award in the Large Business category. Congrats and thank you to CED for supporting our troops as well as to other distributors who do the same (if you know who else does, or your company does, please leave a comment so others can learn and emulate.
• A number of lighting agents are undergoing some stress. According to reports, a number of reps (17) who currently carry Acuity (Lithonia) and WattStopper are being asked to make a decision as Acuity wants them to carry SensorSwitch (an Acuity line) instead. The reps have limited time to make a decision (as if there is a decision to make given the commission dollars generated by Acuity). This shows 1) the power of a large manufacturer to leverage reps, 2) we presume SensorSwitch is being “challenge” to win business vs. WattStopper, hence needs the power of the rep and the Acuity fixture package, 3) that a rep’s business is perilous (have 30 days to make a decision) and 4) distributors will probably be leveraged in lighting packages by Acuity. Lots of work for WattStopper to do in a short time, but some other rep in each of these markets will pick up a very good line.
• Ran across an interesting wire and cable blog, www.electricwire.blogspot.com. It’s run by an electronic’s distributor, WesBell Electronics, but has good product information if you need to train someone on the basics of wire and cable.
• Interested in renewables? Then check out this story on www.examiner.com which
  
  asks the question “Are solar and wind clean energy?” The article is very informative on solar and wind and could help in your sales endeavors (and whether or not to pursue this market).

And, as a closing thought to help distributors manage their profitability ….

In economic times of strife, electrical distributors typically have a rise in theft due to more people working on personal projects and samples “disappear / are missplaced”. Shrinkage typically increases .5-1%, which in an industry that is experiencing 1-2% margin erosion and significant sales decreases, makes earning a profit more challenging.



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