VIEWPOINT
2020: THE YEAR FOR HOME IMPROVEMENTS
Gareth Osborne, senior marketing manager at Tarmac Cement and Lime, looks back at 2020 and the impact that lockdown has had on garden projects.
THIS YEAR HAS brought with it a barrage of unforeseen challenges across the retail sector – yet a huge uplift of DIY activity at home has given merchants more reasons to be cheerful than many other retailers With the nationwide lockdown at the end of March, the retail sector was one of the hardest hit. Merchants, too, experienced huge losses in trade, with the Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) reporting that April, the month of full lockdown, saw a year-on-year decline of 76%.
Meanwhile, during this same period, homeowners across the UK started tackling those niggling jobs across the house. Indeed, figures from the Office for National Statistics really show just how seismic this shift became, with the time spent gardening and doing DIY increasing by a staggering 147% in April. So it would have come as no surprise that when merchants and retailers fully re-opened, sales bounced back strongly. The BMBI reported growth in June, helped no doubt by a combination of good weather and relaxing of restrictions. One of the biggest success stories of this growth, meanwhile, was a boom in landscaping, which saw a 25% increase in sales compared to the same period in 2019.
A garden escape This appetite for garden renovations is certainly something we’ve seen at Tarmac during this time. We saw huge demand for Blue Circle Postcrete - our quick setting, no mix concrete product for fixing fence posts – during the lockdown months. In fact, our customers sold so much of the product between April and August that we could have built
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Tips for repairing fence posts
If fence posts need to be reset, then a quick setting, no mix concrete product, such as Blue Circle Postcrete, can be used for fixing wooden, concrete and metal posts.
Around 25% of the post should be buried below ground. Then, simply fill the hole one third with clean water, hold the post in position and pour the Postcrete evenly around the post until dry powder is visible on the surface.
enough fencing all the way from London to China (with a few bags left over for good measure). As we enter winter, we don’t anticipate this demand for Postcrete to subside anytime soon. Winter weather, especially strong winds and heavy rain, can play havoc with wooden fencing – causing extensive and sometimes expensive damage. It’s at this time merchants should be sure to recommend to their customers to check for unstable fence posts and do any repair work now before the warmer weather rolls in.
In-store experience For the retail sector, the pandemic has seen a huge decline in in-store purchases and the growth of online shopping is undoubtedly a growing concern for many. However, for avid DIYers, the story is a little different. Statista has reported that, when UK consumers were asked what they would do if their normal DIY and gardening store closed, only 24.1% would venture online
instead. More than half of those surveyed would prefer to buy in- store – great news for merchants.
Important role Perhaps all this highlights just how crucial the role of the merchant is. We’ve written here before about how important it is for merchants to grow their expertise and become a trusted advisor to customers. It’s clear that it’s now more important than ever – and there is a very real opportunity out there to capitalise on this through techniques like effective marketing and, of course, customer service. Cross selling, for example, is a simple, yet effective, way to boost revenue. Although it may seem obvious, merchants should be successfully identifying customer buying motives and position similar or relevant products accordingly. If we think back to our Postcrete product, for example, by positioning products like this near to all fencing products you can make the customer journey easier and
The post is held by the Postcrete after a few minutes allowing you to move on to the next one.
This way you can put in three fence posts and hang two fence panels onto them in less than 10 minutes.
increase wider basket spend in the branch.
For those both in the trade and DIY-ers, visiting a branch can bring peace of mind that they’re getting the best deals and the most suitable products for the job. If you have staff with the right knowledge and expertise, you can empower them to become a trusted experts – doing your reputation and bottom line no harm along the way. BMJ
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net December 2020
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