ANALYSIS | kbbreview Retailer Survey 2022
SUPPLIERS SURVEY What suppliers think of 76%
Retailers who said shortage of product was their biggest challenge
What are your biggest challenges?
Challenges thrown at retailers are always difficult but this survey demonstrates just how varied they can be. Just two years ago, Brexit was a major concern with 30% of respondents naming it specifically — now that’s virtually forgotten. In 2017 and 2019 the biggest challenge chosen by retailers was the same — finding good fitters. However, for the first time, it’s dropped to number two despite it actually scoring higher than 2020 with 59%. One issue dominates everything this year with a massive 76% and that’s shortage of product. As always, there are nuances in there. The main brunt of the issue is with kitchens and 80% of those retailers put it as their top challenge. It’s still top for bathrooms too, but only at 65%. The shortage of product throws up other
challenges too and ‘suppliers customer service’ comes in with 43% - pretty much the same for kitchens and bathrooms.
Believe it or not though, this is not a bad result for suppliers all things considered. In 2017, an incredible 91% of kitchen retailers said service levels would make them switch suppliers. This dropped to 25% in 2019 and while it’s gone back up to 44% it could be a lot worse.
The biggest difference between kitchens and bathrooms is competition with online dealers. Just over a third (35%) of bathroom retailers said that was one of their biggest challenges, compared to just 14% of kitchen retailers. However, while that has stayed pretty static for kitchens, in 2019 it was 67% for bathrooms…
What do you think of your suppliers?
Here’s the big one for this year given the challenges over supply. While there’s a lot for suppliers to think about, in general it’s probably not as bad as one would’ve suspected given the anecdotal evidence. In fact, just under three-quarters (74%) of retailers said the service they got from their suppliers was average or good.
That does leave, of course, a quarter who rated it as poor or terrible.
But the reality is more nuanced than that as it comes down to which products you’re trying to get hold of. If you look at those who rated it good or excellent, this year’s survey saw it at 44%, down from 63% in 2019, so there has been a noticeable drop there. Communication has been the biggest complaint from retailers during the uncertainty over shortages and 30% of retailers say it has been poor or terrible. However, 63% say it has been good or average and, again, devil is in detail as it is specific categories where the complaints emerge.
74%
Retailers who said the service they got from suppliers was average or good
32 But what suppliers really want to know is whether
this has affected loyalty from their retailers. It’s no surprise, given the challenges that ‘better service levels’ is the reason given by most retailers when asked what would make them switch suppliers with 61%. However, this is actually down from 2019 when it was chosen by 67%.
Virtually the same amount also said that ‘better stock levels’ was the next deciding factor and 43% said ‘better personal relationships’, also down from 2019 (50%).
Compare this to what would traditionally be seen as deciding factors — geographic exclusivity was ticked by 23% of retailers and 28% chose ‘more innovative product’, down from 54% in 2019.
their retailers... IT WOULDN’T be a comprehensive KBB industry survey if we didn’t also ask suppliers what they think of their independent retailers. We asked a representative sample of 100 kitchen and bathroom suppliers to give us their views on some key areas, just as we did in previous years.
For starters, just how important are independent retailers to the suppliers’ business? We asked what proportion of their sales came from independents and 62% said more than half, an incremental increase from the 2020 survey. Once again, this year’s response
revealed that suppliers think the best thing about working with independent retailers is the trust consumers have in their judgement and advice. In fact, it seems suppliers have gained even more respect for them over the last two years with 81% thinking this, rather than the previous 61%. Suppliers seemingly recognise the benefits of working with retailers. “They can make business decisions,” said one. Independent
retailers have “no major
brand preference,” said another. But there is always the other side of the coin, so we asked suppliers what the most frustrating thing was about working with independent kitchen and bathroom retailers. The top answer was a tie between ‘reluctance to change or do things differently’ and ‘lack of awareness of outside industry pressures’ with 43%. This could be down to the complexities of the international supply chain issues. More on that later. Following closely behind, 41% of
respondents were frustrated when retailers leave orders to the last minute unnecessarily. This is a huge increase from the 2020 survey when only 24% felt late orders were an issue. Suppliers were asked how well they felt their company communicated with retailers over any supply issues. Eighty-four percent rated themselves either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ but, as you can see from the rest of the survey, when retailers were asked to rate it, only a third agreed with that self-assessment. One supplier said: “We tried our best with what information we had, but sometimes it just wasn’t there for us to pass on.” When talking about reputational damage, 60% of suppliers felt their reputation either improved or was left untarnished. So, how long do suppliers envisage the
broad supply chain issues lasting? Some were more optimistic than others with answers spanning three months to two years. And it doesn’t matter where supply was coming from either. “When covid hit and the major raw material manufacturers in Europe had to close, it was like someone putting their foot on a water hose,” one supplier said. “When the hose was released, the booming business across the world demanded supply, but it simply wasn’t there.”
· January 2022
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