Customer Mix

The proportion of electrical distributors' sales that goes to each of the customer groups is reported in the “Customer Mix” table on this page. You can use the customer mix percentages to estimate the dollar volume of sales that distributors in your area are getting out of each customer market.

With 40 percent of electrical distributors' sales, electrical contractors are by far the single largest customer group for electrical distributors.

These percentages and the sales and employment data elsewhere in the Market Planning Guide will help you create custom multipliers for your area. By tracking the sales into each customer market over time, you can pick up on trends in your market.

CUSTOMER MIX
(as a percentage of electrical wholesalers' sales) Nation New England Middle Atlantic East North Central West North Central South Atlantic East South Central West South Central Mountain Pacific Electrical contractors 40.0 43.8 37.7 43.3 64.1 40.0 46.5 50.6 54.4 37.8 Contractors other than electrical 5.1 5.9 6.9 4.5 4.0 7.6 6.3 2.3 3.1 6.4 Commercial 9.5 13.4 9.6 8.7 7.9 7.9 12.5 11.0 5.3 10.9 Institutional 3.3 4.2 4.0 4.0 4.2 3.3 2.3 4.6 3.7 2.4 Industrials (for MRO) 11.3 12.5 13.2 13.2 3.5 10.6 10.6 8.2 8.8 7.5 Industrials (for OEM) 7.1 8.7 7.1 9.7 0.8 4.7 5.6 2.3 3.0 11.6 Factory automation 3.3 2.2 3.6 3.3 0.4 3.1 2.8 4.2 1.6 2.7 Utilities 4.4 1.4 5.0 3.2 3.9 4.3 1.3 2.1 3.8 0.9 General public (retail) 4.2 2.4 4.5 3.8 2.7 7.2 5.5 3.4 3.1 6.4 Retailers (for resale) 2.2 0.5 1.8 1.8 2.1 2.4 1.3 2.4 1.4 1.4 Government (federal, state and local) 3.7 2.1 1.5 3.0 3.0 7.9 3.5 3.8 4.8 4.6 Export 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.0 1.7 0.0 0.0 1.3 0.4 0.3 Mining 0.5 0.0 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.0 4.1 0.0 Farmers 0.5 0.3 0.4 0.4 1.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.6 1.0 Other wholesalers 2.8 1.2 4.3 1.0 0.2 0.6 0.8 2.8 1.9 3.1 Other* 1.6 1.2 0.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.6 1.0 0.0 2.9 Source: Electrical Wholesaling survey conducted in 2003.