SEATTLE PRODUCTIVITY AND SALES SUFFER DURING WINTER STORMS ACCORDING TO INFORMA RESEARCH SERVICES

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON (January 23, 2007) –

Two-thirds of Seattle companies lost productivity and 40 percent say sales suffered because of this winter’s weather, according to Informa Research Services.

“Let it be over,” quipped one executive. “Let’s just have spring come back.”

The biggest loss of productivity was in construction, manufacturing, and wholesale businesses, where 75 percent lost efficiency compared to a typical year. About six in 10 retailers reported lower sales, compared to less than 40 percent among other industries, according to Informa.

“We’d be willing to pay extra to put the power lines underground to avoid this,” said one executive. “I mean, business just can’t afford to shut down for three days. You still pay overhead and you still pay rent.”

The survey was conducted January 17 through 22 with a random sample of 457 companies of all sizes in King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties by Informa, a national marketing research firm with offices in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta.

“Thank God we’ve got the Web,” said a respondent. “We have a lot of clients around the country and even our local ones can go and look at our Website.” Others were not so lucky. “It hasn’t been good for us. We are a trucking company and it has affected us gravely. People couldn’t make it to work. Companies can’t ship.”

Many say workers bore the brunt of the storms: “It has affected the employees more than the business,” offered one.

For companies with lower sales, the average drop was more than 25% over the “bad weather” days. Extrapolated to the region, this would be a loss of tens of millions of dollars. Despite the losses, the consensus among business leaders is they are content with the response of officials to conditions this winter. Forty-five percent said they were satisfied with government action on roads, compared to 26 percent dissatisfied. And 62 percent were satisfied with utility companies, compared to 22 percent dissatisfied.

The attitude may have been captured by the manager who said, “I don’t want to pay enough to keep snow equipment ready to go instantly for four months. I’m ready to be inconvenienced slightly so I don’t have to pay a lot more money for those services.”

Meanwhile, 12 percent reported better sales, such as the respondent who commented, “My restaurant had the busiest week ever when the lights went out.” Some boatyards, electrical contractors, and other businesses also benefited. Said one manager, “It’s been a positive bottom line financially because people needed a place to stay in our hotel - but the winter weather has been disruptive to the flow of life.” Another added “I hope it keeps snowing - we sell skates and snowboards.”

“It has hurt productivity with school closings and people haven’t been able to get here,” said one. “It’s amazing, compared to back east, that there are as many closings as there are here for the amount of precipitation.”

“I think that it made us rather afraid for the future because of this winter,” concluded a manager. “Modern society is ill prepared and we are having problems with our infrastructure.”

Global Warming?

A separate question asked whether they believe “there is solid evidence that the average temperature on Earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades.” Sixty-one percent said yes, 24 percent no, and 15 percent said they didn’t know or declined to answer. Of those agreeing, half thought warming was mostly due to human activity such as burning fossil fuel, 21 percent said natural patterns, and 18 percent said both.

Half the respondents were owners, presidents, CEOs, or general managers and the rest other managers. The margin for sampling error in the poll is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

About Informa Research Services, Inc. (www.informars.com)

Informa Research Services is the premier provider of competitive intelligence, market research, and mystery shopping services to the financial, telecommunications, business-to-business, high technology, and consumer goods markets.