State of Point of Sales Reporting and the Importance to Manufacturer Reps

NEMRA has retained Channel Marketing Group to better understand the state of POS (point of sale) reporting in the electrical distribution industry for the purpose of accurately compensating independent electrical manufacturer sales representatives for activity in their territory.

Over the past month we’ve interviewed a number of reps, manufacturers and distributors to gain their perspectives and to also understand what they receive and how effective the process is.  Needless to say, there are some challenges, but there are also a number of best practices we’ve discovered.

We’re currently in a broader phase of the research and need your help. We are conducting surveys to reps, manufacturers and distributors.  The should take only a couple of minutes and will help further understand the issue and the opportunity.

Once the results are in, we’ll share them with NEMRA who plans to then issue an industry report. Additionally we’re looking to talk to additional manufacturers and distributors who are sharing POS information on “commodity-oriented” products (those that are sold “generically” by distributors and are typically in non-segregated inventory bins).

To take the survey, click on your role in the channel:

• Reps
• Distributors
• Manufacturers

This is becoming a bigger, more important issue in the industry due to consolidation (at the national and regional level), the increase in the number of RDCs / CDCs and a concern by reps of the auditability / transparency of the information and the impact on their compensation. Some expressed concern on the issue as ecommerce becomes more prevalent.

Early feedback infers that effective POS, defined as at the point of sale (distributor branch) can be a differentiator for distributors, especially for independent electrical distributors.

Please share your input by June 5 or, if you are interested, please contact us via the Contact Us page.