Last week we released our Q2 Pulse of Lighting report and Acuity, the following day, released their Q3 earnings (they are on a fiscal year). The commonality appears to be “a market in flux”. While Acuity claims share increase in […]
We know tariffs can impact the electrical business. But rare earth metals? We’ve had tariffs after last year’s tariffs on steel, aluminum and a number of other products. The recent acceleration of tariffs on Chinese imported products (price increases from […]
For a word that wasn’t part of the national conscience, it is now front and center and bringing disruption to business. Tariffs. In an industry where price increases occurred annually, where pricing was stable except for copper, companies have now […]
Or are we talking ourselves into a recession? Since the fall and the beginning of planning season there have been some economists who have been warning of a second half 2019 slowdown leading to a 2020 recession. Their prognostications were […]
The first quarter of 2019 has been an interesting ride in the lighting space. There has been: The threat of increased tariffs and then the extensive of the existing tariffs. Some manufacturers raising prices to compensate for tariff increases, others […]
Our Q4 Pulse of Lighting survey is currently open and while perusing some of the feedback regarding market trends, one of the dynamics that was repeatedly mentioned was lighting manufacturers selling direct. In fact it was mentioned that it is […]
2018 may go down as the year of tariffs. Earlier in the year tariffs were implemented on steel and aluminum. In July the first round of tariffs targeting Chinese products found its way into the industry while there have been […]
That’s one of the questions we’ve had a number of distributors, and some manufacturers, ask this week “What’s the story / what have you heard about this story regarding Schneider, Legrand, Rexel and Sonepar coming out of France?” and the […]
Corporate success, for many, is typically defined as sales success as sales revenue is an easily identifiable, and discussed / shared, metric. But in a quest to grow sales, and due to competitive pressures, gross margins for many distributors have […]
Every year hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested / spent by manufacturers to solicit preference from distributors. In fact, about 10 years ago we estimated over $500M was spent in rebate funding. (Today we estimate over $1 billion!) […]
