NEWS Toolstream buys Birchwood Price Tools


Tools supplier and distributor, Toolstream has acquired workwear and site equipment manufacturer,


Birchwood


Price Tools from Travis Perkins, and is “in talks” with other brands, as part of UK expansion plans. Toolstream confirmed to it had bought


DIY Week that


Birchwood Price Tools for an undisclosed sum, adding to its portfolio, which already includes the Silverline, Triton, GMC, Task, and Bench Dog brands. Whilst Toolstream remained


tight-lipped on the details of the deal, a spokesperson for the company suggested further acquisitions are in the pipeline. They


said: “We can confirm


Toolstream is in talks with a number of brands as part of its ongoing expansion strategy. Our recent acquisition of Birchwood Price Took is part of this process.” Birchwood Price Tools, which was acquired by the Travis Perkins Group in 2011, is a manufacturer and wholesaler, supplying workwear brands Scruff and Tough Grit, as well


(Birmingham) to form Birchwood Price Tools. Three years later, the company was acquired by the Travis Perkins Group, accelerating the firm’s growth, giving access to the Travis Perkins distribution network. Whilst


the business still has


as site equipment brands Rhino and Defender. The company was established as Birchwood Products in the 1970s developing products for the trade. The first Defender products were launched


Online spending on household goods soars during August


Household goods stores reported year-on-year (YOY) growth of 27.3% online in August, as consumers chose to spend time in the garden and doing DIY, whilst spending online reached a new record proportion of all retail sales. According to the latest figures


from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), non-food stores’ sales growth online outstripped food stores last month, posting


ManoMano rebrands its online


an increase of 17.3% compared with just 5.5% YOY.


Household goods saw the biggest increase and gave a good performance overall in August, as the warm weather boosted sales, with consumers spening time in their gardens and completing DIY. The month- on-month growth rate across the board, including online and bricks-and-mortar sales, saw non-food stores jump 2.8%


and household goods stores up 4.5%, offsetting declines from food and clothing stores. According to the ONS Retail Sales Index (RSI), spending online continued to increase to reach a new record proportion of all retailing at 18.2%; with strong growth in department stores also reaching a record proportion at 18.4%.


Rhian


ONS senior statistician Murphy


said:


marketplace ManoMano has announced a


transformation and rebrand in line with its evolution. The French-based e-tailer, which was set up five years ago by Philippe de Chanville and Christian Raisson, now operates across Spain, Italy and Germany and was launched in the UK in 2016. The rebrand marks five years of strong growth for ManoMano, tripling its revenue every year since 2013.


The UK platform has also seen rapid growth since 2016 and reached last year’s figures by July 2018.


The old logo was designed in a couple of minutes by hand, using the very limited resources that ManoMano had available at the time.


The new logo and identity, the company has said, show- case the brand’s quirkiness, trustworthiness and its passion for fun with the off-centre nut that typically represents the DIY sector, but with a twist.


www.diyweek.net


Houzz UK launches new pop-up shop


The online home improvement and design platform will welcome the public to browse and buy its products via a new pop-up shop, DreamHouzz, in London over the next 10 days. Described by Houzz UK managing director Marcus Hartwell as, “a new way to do retail,” DreamHouzz features eight dedicated room-sets created by designers on Houzz’s database and styled around different customer types, from ‘millennial


flatmates’ to a ‘modern family’. The event, set in a Bermondesy warehouse – the old tannery – is free for anyone to attend, with Houzz promoting the pop-up on social media, as well as inviting customers along by email. Everything in the room-sets can be bought and is displayed with tags giving product information and prices. The products showcased in the room sets are based on findings of a recent survey


“Food


and household goods stores particularly benefitted from the warm weather when compared with last summer.” A supplementary report issued by ONS revealed that, despite the stronger online presence,


and are tailored to suit different customer types. A bank of computers then allows visitors to complete their purchase on site and with the help of the Houzz team, who are on hand to curate the room sets or offer advice and support throughout the transactional process. MD Marcus Hartwell explained that the new launch follows on from the ‘Houzz of 2018’ event the company ran earlier this year when they transformed a townhouse in Soho into a house into a showroom of products available via houzz.co.uk, including a fully-kitted kitchen and bathroom. He said: “We said after the Houzz of 2018 that there was an appetite for this. At DreamHouzz, inspiration meets shopping. It’s a new way to do retail.” He continued: “It’s not an an immersive


exhibition, it’s


experience – people can sit on the sofas, lie on the beds and pick up and touch the products. It also plays with all the senses, with


fragrances across every


room and food being served. We have, hopefully, created a destination where people can spend hours.”


The pop-up shop, located on


47 Tanner Street, will be open daily between 10am-9pm, until September 30.


consumers spent most of their money in stores and the majority of online spending was done within non-store retail, suggesting that pureplay online traders are growing faster than multi-channel retailers.


Garden King purchases site after reporting


record trading The garden centre has just completed the purchase of its site in Newhall, Swadlincote, having rented from neighbouring Buildbase (Grafton Merchanting Ltd) since Garden King started trading in 2000.


The news follows “fantastic year of trading”, says the garden centre – which is owned by Planters Garden Centre in Tamworth - with four record sales months in a row, from May to August, and a sales growth of 19% for the year so far. With the purchase of the site now complete, Garden King has gained extra car parking and space to increase its popular caravan storage facility, as well as two additional units on the site and the woods that the border the location. Garden King has said it “looks forward to finally being able to develop the site further to


enhance the customer


environment and secure [our] future at the site.”


28 SEPTEMBER 2018 DIY WEEK 5


in 1997, followed by Van Vault in 1998 and Scruffs in 2003. In 2008, Birchwood Products was acquired by BSS PLC and merged with power tool wholesaler Price Tools


its head office in Nottingham, in 2015, it relocated its warehouse operation to a new 600,000sq ft purpose-built logistics facility in Warrington.


Travis Perkins


has yet to respond to a request for comment about the sale of Birchwood Price Tools.


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