Major Appliance Retailing - A/C, Neptune Set Margin Balance

The major appliance industry is waiting for what's left of El Niño to go away and crank up up the heat, impacting the industry's sales this summer.

"I had my heat on last night," said John Oswald, vice president of Appliance Center, Maumee, OH, last month. "It's a little hard to sell refrigerators and air conditioners when it's 40 degrees."

"Air conditioners have not been a driver yet," Lew Gaffen, vice president of Bernie's Audio Video TV & Appliance, said. "May was a good month, but people aren't standing in line to buy them yet."