LOOKING FORWARD TO 2024
and bathrooms as well as roofing products, plasterboard, insulation and render all rose throughout the year.
In response to this trend, we refurbished our kitchen and bathroom showrooms in Huyton and Chester, and in April 2023, opened a new roofing centre at our Radcliffe branch to serve tradespeople in the North West.
Preserving Timber Trade Timber is a core part of our offer which has presented both challenges and opportunities for our business. While carefully managing the impact of falling prices, we have invested in a new timber treatment plant in Chester to improve our services.
For the first time, this means we can treat timber in both green and brown to meet regional design requirements. The fully automated facility has also increased our production capacity by 280% and removes the need for any drying time so we can deliver treated products to our customers much faster than before.
As there are limited facilities offering the same service in the Chester region, we hope that timber merchants in Cheshire and North Wales will also take advantage of our new treatment plant.
LOOKING BACK AND TO THE FUTURE
James Beesley, commercial director at independent builders’ merchant Beesley & Fildes, reflects on the factors that have shaped the industry in 2023 and what lies ahead.
I
t has been another challenging year for the construction industry and its supply chain. A slowdown in the new build housing market combined with rising inflation and volatile product prices have created a tough trading environment. For the merchant industry, these trends have required nimble management, enabling businesses to build on their strengths, respond to changing customers’ needs, and create resilience.
Highs and Lows
By the end of 2022, the price of some construction products had begun to drop, this is a trend that continued throughout 2023.
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The price of timber fell significantly as did the price of Indian Stone with shipping containers reducing in cost by more than 94%. The price of bricks also reduced driven by surplus stock levels across the UK. Meanwhile some products, such as cement, experienced price increases.
Like in 2022, this volatility has required merchants to continuously monitor sales and price patterns ensuring there is sufficient stock to meet customers’ demand while maintaining our margins.
Although the new build housing market slowed in 2023, the demand for home improvements increased. Sales of our kitchen
Prioritising Sustainability Despite economic challenges, the merchant industry has shown a commitment to sustainability and reducing the built environment’s environmental impact. At Beesley & Fildes, we have a proactive sustainability strategy which has seen us invest in solar power in 2023. A total of 600 solar panels were installed at our Widnes depot which are on track to save 49 tonnes of CO2 every year - the equivalent to 9,378 trees and more than 1,000 long-haul flights. In addition, we invested £7m in a new fleet of trucks with lower emissions and have added two electric cars to our fleet as well as six hybrid models.
Looking Ahead
The uncertainty over the past two years has seen merchants learn to adapt and that puts us in a strong position for the year ahead. With prices of building materials beginning to stabilise, the early part of 2024 could mark the start of a less challenging market, which we hope will be bolstered by an uptick in new build housing. We will continue to monitor industry shifts and identify opportunities to expand or refine our offer. Ensuring we attract and retain skilled people will be key to this aim and maintaining the highest levels of service for our customers. BMJ
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net January 2024
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