EM's Product Sales Potential Data Points to Massive Market Potential in Select MSAs

Electrical Marketing’s product sales data can help you analyze revenue potential in several different ways.

Mind share. Electrical Marketing’s average product mix percentages, which were developed from surveys of more than 100 Top 150/Top 200 electrical distributors, tell an interesting story of which products command the most attention, selling time and inventory investment from distributors. According to EM’s product mix, the 10 product groups that account for the highest percentage of the industry’s total electrical sales are lighting fixtures (16.9%); wire and cable (13.3%); switchgear (8%); industrial controls (6.3%); lamps (5.4%); distribution equipment (5.3%); voice-data-video (VDV) products (3.8%); circuit breakers (3.4%); and conduit fittings and accessories (3.4%). These 10 product groups account for roughly 71% of total industry sales.

Theoretically, every electrical distributor has a distinct product mix tailored to the local market or markets they target. For example, a distributor serving the auto industry in Lansing, MI, is going to have a much higher percentage of industrial products than a distributor in Fort Myers, FL, where the concentration of industrial business is much lighter. But these national percentages will give you a good general idea of which products have the most pull.

The product sales estimates at the local and state level available to Electrical Marketing subscribers by clicking on the link below and the regional sales estimates in the chart  use the same national percentages because Electrical Wholesaling didn’t have enough responses in its distributors surveys from each region to tailor the product mix percentages down to the state of local level.

Largest local markets for a specific product type. While Electrical Marketing's local product potential estimates are not intended to be in exact dollars for local markets, they still provide a good starting point to estimate the size of the revenue opportunity for key product groups. For example, EM estimates that the size of the wire and cable market for Chicago and its suburbs throughout the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin (IL-IN-WI) Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is $496.1 million this year. The lighting market in this MSA is also huge, and EM estimates that in 2023 distributors in Chicagoland could sell roughly $900 million in lamps, lighting fixtures and controls.

EM's electrical product potential data will be updated later this year, in time for the 2024 market planning season.

Click here to download Electrical Marketing's electrical product sales estimates for more than 300 local market areas and all 50 states