12 Volters Feel Election Dip in Swing States

Many 12 volt retailers, mainly in swing states, say that sales have slowed since around June due to pre-election jitters.

While there is much debate about whether presidential elections cause a dip in US retail sales overall, many 12 volt shops that have been in the business for decades say the phenomenon is real.

Long time leading retailer Paul Papadeas of Soundcrafters, FL is marking his 11^th presidential election cycle.  “They are always challenging.  What happens is sales seem to taper off when the media starts talking about it in June, July or sometimes before.” He notes that it becomes harder to close a sale during this period.

Based on our recent short poll of retailers, it is mainly shops in swing states that are reporting a downturn since June, which they attribute to the election cycle.

In Detroit, Car Tunes found that “Business was fairly robust until the middle of May and then it started to slow down going into June.  The pattern emerged of good days interspersed with slow days and that pattern continued into July with a net sales figure down 10 percent year over year and going into August, it’s the same thing,” according to Car Tunes Owner Mark Constantakis.

In Arizona, The Specialists’ Pete Riker said, “Yes, with the uncertainty from the election we notice less traffic and less people coming in. We noticed it in the last election. It’s just the uncertainty.”

A leading distributor said, “The media just creates such a frenzy, it pulls everyone’s attention away from everything else, typically through September and October. Everyone gets the fear of what’s going to change. It impacts the stock market as well.”

Plus all this occurs during back to school season, when consumers are buying school supplies and clothes, often until late September/early October.

Once the election is over, sales go back to normal, said dealers.

Jim Warren, a former buyer for Car Toys and former Executive Director of the Elite Distributor Group (now at Lucas Lighting) said elections impact car audio retailers for three reasons:

1)  The availability of media (advertising space) can be limited due to campaign laws and spending.

2)   A certain amount of mental ‘attention’ is drawn to the campaigns and away from normal day to day behavior

3)  Campaign giving can pull discretionary income out of the market as hundreds of millions of dollars are donated to election efforts

For some retailers, however, larger high ticket jobs can offset the slowdown in store traffic.

Data from the July issue of Mobile Electronics magazine shows a slowdown since March when sales compared to last year dipped by double digits with March down 16 percent, April down 12 percent, May down 16 percent and June down 14 percent, for car audio specialists compared to last year.