ANALYSIS | Appliance supply update


Chip shortages have been the main source of delays


low as six to 12 weeks. One retailer told us he was still waiting for an oven he ordered in August last year. On the kbbreview Podcast Darren Taylor said he was still waiting for appliances that he ordered last September. Just


over a third said that the shortages were having an adverse effect on cashflow, the same number had gaps in their showroom displays where there should be an appliance, and 71% said they now need to hold more stock than they normally would. And to back that up, when we visited Hutton Kitchens in Billericay recently, owner Ed Scott told us he was having to carry around £100,000 worth of appliances in stock. To get around the shortages, many retailers are buying appliances online to


they were. We can also report that every retailer we have visited recently has also said that they are actively looking for new brands.


When kbbreview visited its Kitchen Showroom of the Year for 2022, Birkdale Kitchen Company near Southport, MD Neil Gokcen said: “We thought, if we are really pushed by a client, we can look who’s got the shortest lead time today and say to the customer that if they want to hit their deadline, they’ll have to have these appliances.”


of retailers report waiting times of 4-6 months


49%


get projects finished. In our poll, 86% of retailers told us they had bought online, and many also reported buying from


distributors and other trade


sources. One retailer we visited recently, told us he had been buying from John Lewis and AO among others to complete jobs and confided: “Otherwise, we would have to shut the showroom down. It has been affecting margins, but it’s more important to keep things going.”


Kbbreview was curious to know the appliance categories that were worst affected, and the consensus was that problems were now mainly confined to high-specification ovens and combi microwaves. In view of the rocky supply chain road, we asked retailers if they were actively seeking new suppliers, and just under three-quarters (72%) said


34


That’s all very well, of course, but if your customer has their heart set on a particular brand, it may not be easy to change their mind. Phil Beechinor, MD of


Alexander in


Worthing, alluded to this when he appeared on the kbbreview


Podcast with Darren Taylor. He said: “We have offered people alternatives, but it’s a bit like if you have a Mercedes or a Range Rover coming and I say, ‘well I can get you a Ford’. They say ‘no thanks, I’d rather wait’.”


Ian Coghill, a director at Riddle and


Coghill in Edinburgh says: “Some new players have moved into the marketplace and will be disruptive to what was a pretty static thought process by retailers who were stuck with little choice. There are some very impressive options appearing and they aren’t all German – Milan showed off a whole new offering with suppliers open to UK orders.” We also asked our retailers how many appliances they are currently waiting for to complete jobs and more than a third said 15 to 20, while some reported as many as 40.


More shocking was how much money was currently outstanding in final payments that could not be collected because their clients were still missing an appliance.


The highest was £50,000, the lowest around £3,000, but taking the average means that, potentially, millions of pounds are owed to kitchen studios around the country as a result of appliance shortages.


Poorly handled


So those are the facts, but what did retailers think about how supply chain issues have been handled by manufacturers? “Terribly,” was the reaction from Nairn,


Simon director of Kitchen


Culture in Cambridge. “We can all cope with bad news, but you can’t cope with surprises. No one wants to take responsibility, so it’s left to the retailers to feel the pain, and the customers simply don’t understand why they don’t have an oven when it was ordered six months ago.” Stewart Woodruff, owner of MBK Design Studio in Maidstone, says: “Very poorly, with a lack of any helpful information. Having appliance [availa- bility] labelled ‘to be confirmed’ helps no one.”


Things are getting better and consumer demand is certainly tailing off, so they are able to catch up a bit more. I personally think we are over the


worst of it Darren Taylor, MD, Searle and Taylor, Winchester


These feelings are echoed by Keith Myers of The Myers Touch in Winchester, who has this to say: “We get reports which tell us that items are still out of stock, but no meaningful information on how they will fulfil orders.” Taylor at Searle and Taylor agrees: “I think some of the appliance manufacturers have handled it appallingly, although they believe they are doing everything they can.” On a more positive note, we also asked retailers who they would nominate as being among their best suppliers in terms of product availability. Miele, Samsung, Hotpoint and Neff were mentioned, but by far and away the brand praised most often for its availability, in our survey and anecdotally, was Caple. We spoke to Caple managing


director Danny Lay to find out how they’ve managed to do so well in terms of availability.


He starts by confirming there is currently 95% availability across Caple’s appliance range and he attributes that to a number of factors. First, that Caple caters for the domestic UK market and Ireland only, not the whole world.


“When we went into lockdown, we didn’t cancel any orders and [factories] continued to ship products to us,” explains Lay. “Because we didn’t cancel anything, when business came back, and it came back fairly rapidly, within two or three months we were up to


the same levels of turnover as


before the first lockdown. Then, when the industry went very busy, we’d already built up a big level of stock. There was never a time when we suffered severe stock shortages.” Caple also sources from Europe. As Lay tells kbbreview: “We have used


· November 2022


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