[dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#ea35db”]T[/dropcap]he question that I get asked most often from people already in the residential lighting industry and those looking to break into that market is: “Do you have any statistics?”
Unfortunately, since most of our industry’s companies are privately held, there isn’t any readily available data like there is for commercial lighting fixtures. The same holds true on the showroom side of the business. Unlike large retailers – i.e. Home Depot, Lowe’s, Macy’s, Sears, Target, Wal-Mart – lighting showrooms and electrical supply houses are privately held and keep their operations information close to the vest.
This is why conferences held by the American Lighting Association (ALA) and Lighting One are so highly valued among their members. Besides the educational seminars, these gatherings offer the opportunity for store owners to talk amongst themselves about how business has been, the challenges their stores are facing, and tips for how bricks-and-mortar showrooms can thrive in the Internet age of online shopping. There simply is no other way to get this type of information…until now.
Several months ago, we at enLIGHTenment Magazine hired a research team to conduct a survey among store owners nationwide so we could offer the industry a comprehensive analysis of the current state of affairs for the showroom segment. With our inaugural Showroom Benchmark Report – which we are making available for free – it is our goal to share this relevant information with the lighting showroom community so that store management can compare their operations with those of their peers in a positive way. Excluding financial data, our Showroom Benchmark Report details specific challenges facing retailers and the solutions that have worked to combat them, plus explores successful marketing methods as well as how customer demographics are changing.
January is naturally a time of new beginnings and we’d like for you to be able to start 2017 with some helpful insights that might subtly alter how you do business in the year ahead. Be sure to download your free copy – available exclusively to our subscribers – by going online to enlightenmentm.wpengine.com/getreport
