Pulling together details from its numerous sources of market data for its quarterly market report, BHETA (the British Home Enhancement Association) is seeing a long term and permanent shift in emphasis towards the importance of enjoying private space, both indoors and outdoors.
Emphasising that demand for home entertaining and home baking products continues to be strong beyond lockdowns, the association highlights the fact that searches for ‘baking tray’ are up 41% on pre-pandemic levels (according to Google Trends).
BHETA’s statistics also illustrate that while the role of online in home and garden sales has declined from its pandemic peak, retail footfall in August was still only around 80% of pre-pandemic levels, and ecommerce sales have settled at around a third higher than in 2019. Location appears to be a key factor for bricks and mortar, with retail parks performing better than the High Street and in town shopping centre, according to BHETA.
While overall retail volumes have slipped back since their surge in April and May after the Q1 lockdown, sales volume of home and household goods has remained ahead of other sectors since June 2020 and are projected to stay at the forefront of retail growth into 2022.
However, BHETA acknowledges the uncertain impact of supply chain challenges, as well as surging commodity costs, inflation and other macro-economic issues on consumer expenditure. The association states that August retail stock levels were down 21% compared with expected sales – the lowest since the 1980s – and 6.5% of businesses in the retail industry were unable to get the materials, goods or services they needed.
BHETA’s quarterly market report is available exclusively to BHETA members. For more information about BHETA and its data, networking, and business support programme, contact member services on 0121 237 1130 or zm@bheta.co.uk.
Top: Demand for home baking products has continued beyond lockdowns. Photo by Katarina Holmes.
