Growth in our online business has continued to grow as “e-tailers” benefit from the boom in home improvement projects caused by lockdown and homeowners spending money on home improvement instead of holidays.
Although sales in April did dip, we have since seen consistent growth throughout the year on e-tailers, especially VictoriaPlum.com.
Their sales are growing hugely and they expect to finish their financial year more than 60% up versus 2019.
Our sales with the company are currently following the same trend. However, the past four weeks have been above 70% growth.
As we near quarter four, we have big plans to “inspire and inform” consumers through a key trading period where Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday and Wayfair ‘WayDay’ are now key events.
Ideal Standard is investing significantly in advertising to drive online traffic and in supporting the key trading period with promotions in selected e-tailers.
Business Development Director Neil Bills said: “We can read many articles that show how shopping habits changed, with generally more reliance on online shopping, and the same behaviour appears to happening in bathrooms and other household products.
“DIY as a market has declined for a number of years but this year has seen it come back very strongly through the lockdown. This is now continuing with our B&Q sales up over 30% last month, compared to August 2019.”
There is more to come in DIY, as we re-launch with B&Q at the end of this month, and over the next few weeks we are working to expand our catalogue on Amazon, create a brand store and ramp up our advertising. More details will follow in the October edition of The Bubble.