Shower toilets | PRODUCTS
Lootopia? T
Finding
Eco-friendly, hygienic, hi-tech, and luxurious – not many bathroom products can boast all of that, but shower toilets offer a variety of opportunities for bathroom retailers. Vicki Evans explores this growing category that has only been in the UK market for a decade
en years ago, most UK consumers didn’t know that shower toilets even existed. The few that did would most likely have come across them on their travels in Asia. One of the earliest examples to make a splash on the European market was from Toto. The Japanese brand, which owns the trademark to the phrase ‘washlet’ and has sold 50 million of them worldwide, was the fi rst to launch at ISH in 2009 and the brand opened its own Clerkenwell show room in 2010.
Although shower toilets are far
from the norm in UK bathrooms, there has been a sudden spike in their popularity. More manufacturers are producing shower toilets for the UK market, and consumer awareness is rising signifi cantly. Many retailers jumped on this new type of product as they saw it as an opportunity to offer something unique to their customers that they wouldn’t be able to buy everywhere. In the UK, we don’t have the
culture of using shower toilets in the way that they do in continental Europe or Asia. Bidets are common in the rest of Europe, and in Japan 80% of all WCs are shower toilets, but we Brits love toilet paper – as you could tell by all the shortages at the start of the year. Elina Enqvist-Twomey, category manager at Grohe, succinctly explains the general history and the future of the shower toilet: “Cleaning with water after using the toilet is an age-old tradition that is still favoured in many parts of the world. However, shower toilets bring this natural form of cleansing into the 21st century, using automation, app connectivity and personalisation.”
Grohe has seen that shower toilets
are growing in commercial, hospitality and care environments, which builds familiarity with their functionality for the everyday consumer. Residential specifi cations are going to follow in the next couple of years, according to Enqvist-Twomey, as the mass market begins to understand the benefi ts. Most customers won’t even have used a shower toilet before, so may not be aware of the benefi ts. Many will not understand the
difference between a bidet and a shower toilet. They do the same thing, but one offers many more features and benefi ts. Most standard bidets start and end with washing functionalities. Managing director of Geberit UK, Mark Larden, gives a full breakdown of the features that a shower toilet offers as well: “Of course, the shower toilet also offers users all of the functionality of a bidet, but with a host of additional cutting-edge features, such as orientation lighting, odour extraction, a warm-air drying function and heated toilet seats, all of which can be controlled by a handy remote control or app.”
Wash with water One of the signifi cant benefi ts of a shower toilet is hygiene. With cleanliness and sanitation top of everyone’s agenda at the moment, shower toilets can be presented as a logical choice for many customers. Part of the reason that shower toilets – or indeed bidets – aren’t trendy is because those people are just not yet used to washing with
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