Winter lockdown could give £550m boost to home improvement sales

England’s latest month-long lockdown could fuel a half-billion-pound spike in sales of home improvement goods.

According to The British Home Enhancement Trade Association, the four-week lockdown could see sales of home-improvement goods hit £4.94 billion, with more than a third of consumers actively planning projects. That, it said, was a £550 million increase on last year.

The association further highlighted that new research from Powered Now – a trades-based billing and quotation application – showed that 81% of consumers said they would not postpone home-improvement work because of coronavirus and were not put off by having tradespeople in their homes.

In fact, almost one-in-five (18%) said that the threat of a second wave of the virus had influenced them to start home-improvement projects sooner rather than later.

The survey also showed that since the first lockdown, 15% of tradespeople were experiencing their highest ever client demand and that 17% of them were regularly working more than 10 hours a day. A similar number (18%) said they had such a backlog of work that they did not have the time for new business development.

Powered Now chief executive Ben Dyer said: “Over the past few months, we had been seeing a really welcome confirmation of the trend we have been experiencing at Powered Now – the trade sectors are back.

“Now, with a second wave and lockdown upon us, and with the construction sector continuing to remain open, we are expecting to see a push in the trade sectors prior to the winter months. The weather and lockdown are undoubtedly helping the trades bounce back even quicker as people are now rushing to hire a tradesperson for their desired work.”

Dyer concluded: “This has helped to spike demand and we expect it to continue in the short term, confirming that Brits were and will continue to be eager to have home improvement jobs completed, treating themselves to a little home-based TLC.”

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