FOCUS | Covid-19: One year on
Homeowners expect to spend half of their time working from home in the future**
54%
Kitchens • Kitchen sales for 2020
projects, especially in the bathroom, which led to an unexpected, but positive, increase in sales.
“Throughout the year, we also saw how resilient and adaptable the bathroom industry is. Other markets struggled to keep going, whereas we adapted our processes and continued working to ensure we could manufacture to meet the retailer demand.” Although the general sales levels have been steady and there have been reports about bathroom retailers being extraordinarily busy with full order books, AMA predicts that bathroom sales will only gradually recover to their 2019 levels by 2024.
Sales recovery The latest fi gures from the Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) show sales through merchants for kitchens and bathrooms in 2020 down 18% over 2019 but recovered in December 2020 to be 2.6% higher than that month in 2019.
The low point for merchants was April when the monthly sales index slumped by around 75% for total sales and by almost 90% for kitchens and bathrooms. In terms of total sales of all products through builders merchants during 2020, the BMBI showed an 8.8% rise over 2019.
At the higher end of the spectrum compared with merchants, Smallbone of Devizes says it increased its sales year on year and sales director Nick Bell tells kbbreview “we have not only weathered the storm, we’ve excelled”. With kitchen sales up, there was room to move into different categories, as many retailers saw an increase in home offi ce sales. Symphony Group saw an growth in other categories, not just interest in their kitchen portfolio but in their Urbano home offi ce collection, as so many people are now working from home and will continue to do
down 5% on 2019 at £2.5 billion
• Kitchen installations for 2020 down 9.25% to 1.2 million
• Independent retailers increased their market share from 28% in 2019 to 41% in 2020
so in the near future.
Covid- and Brexit-related delays caused a variety of issues for the industry at the start of 2021. Mike Tattam, sales and marketing director at Lakes and one of the BMBI’s panel of experts, warns of continuing supply chain disruption for Q2 2021 as UK container ports are bottlenecking.
The BMA says that at the worst point in April 2020, bathroom sales were down 28% on 2019. However,
in January this year,
sales were up 2% in 2020 and 3% on 2019. Anecdotal evidence from retailers suggests a noticeable bounce-back in sales
after the fi rst lockdown, which is confi rmed by Tom Reynolds, BMA chief executive, who says: “By summer 2020, the bathroom sector was back to near-normal levels of activity and pent-up demand seemed to create a momentum that continued through the second half of the year.” Bill Miller, MD of the KBBG buying group, reports that sales were up 13.6% year on year in 2020 and that membership was up by a record 30%, having predicted prior to the fi rst lockdown that sales might fall by 20%.
AMA predicts bathroom sales will return to 2019 levels by 2024
2024
Euromonitor analyst Veronika Kandusova comments: “Sales of kitchen and bathroom ware, along with furniture, signifi cantly declined in 2020 as households put off long renovation projects. Sales were disrupted by store closures and postponed house moves in the fi rst half of the year. The second half saw increased demand for kitchen furniture and bathroom furniture and sanitaryware, refl ecting pent-up demand and boosted by activity in the property market. These categories are expected to experience latent demand in 2021 onwards as a result of households delaying purchases in 2020. “The enhanced focus on digital innovations in 2020, including virtual showrooms, online consultations or to-do video content, is expected to further contribute to the growth of e-commerce seen in 2020.”
NOVEMBER 18, 2020
GOVERNMENT U-TURN
KBB showrooms ar e told to close in a government U-turn
38
DECEMBER 8, 2020 VACCINE
The fi rst person in the UK receives Pfi zer Covid-19 vaccine
DECEMBER 20, 2020 VERY HIGH RISK
Wales is put on its highest alert level
DECEMBER 26, 2020 IRISH LOCKDOWN
Northern Ireland is placed under a lockdown post- Christmas
JANUARY 5, 2021 THIRD LOCKDOWN
England and Scotland enter third lockdown and KBB showrooms are told to close
FEBRUARY 22, 2021
LOCKDOWN ROADMAP
England is given a roadmap out of lockdown
· April 2021
**Source: Häfele
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