Specialists still sell more integrated appliances than any other channel, and the proportion of the overall budget allocated to them is increasing all the time, says Jayne Barber, of JKMR…
The specialist sector remains the single largest channel for integrated major domestic appliances (MDA) sales in value terms, with a projected 39.2% share in 2024.
Specialists have actually made share gains over the last two years, with their client base less affected by wider cost of living issues, but growth also reflects the fact that specialists specify intrinsically higher cost products for their clients.
This year, we’re expecting big multiples to still operate in a price conscious way, driving customers to actively compare the costs of MDAs with other similar retailers – both physical and online.
At the same time the move by some MDA brands to sell direct to consumers is also making it increasingly challenging for the multiples to work within historic margin levels – unless it’s their own brands.
However, as the market begins to move away from a cost focus, and especially given that sales to new build should start to pick up, JKMR expects that the specialist share of the MDA market may well contract by the end of 2025 and going into 2026.
However, it is highly unlikely that it will fall under 35% due to the fact that specialist clients are the highest spending within the market, and as generally older repeat buyers those most driven to opt for ‘the latest’ products with their attendant price premiums.
If we look at the average spend on integrated MDA as a proportion of a total kitchen then there is also an upward path over the last 20 years. Taking the core products of cabinets, worktop, MDA, sinks and taps, spend on MDAs rose from 21% in 2008 to 28% in 2017, and has continued to rise to over 31% now, driven by both increasingly sophisticated products and the number of appliances purchased per kitchen going up.
Average project MDA spend is now at almost 70% of average unit spend, compared to 2017 when typical MDA spend was only 56%, reflecting both greater price rises, relatively speaking, for MDAs against cabinetry, and the greater focus clients are putting on their appliances.
Despite this, price driven retailing on the internet remains a major concern to the specialists, and it is also a concern that clients are putting more of their budget into products that have the lowest margins.
If we go back to 2000 as a comparison, over 25% of specialist kitchens were still sold without any major integrated MDAs, with cabinetry typically fitted around free-standing models that were already there or sourced elsewhere.
Once ‘non-MDA kitchens’ were stripped out, studios sold on average just over four integrated MDAs per kitchen, for example oven, hob, extractor, and dishwasher. By 2010 only around 15% of specialist kitchens included no major integrated MDA and the average number of MDAs had seen a modest rise.
As the market came out of recession the average number rose quickly. Given there remained a not insignificant number of lower cost sales whose MDAs were solely a ‘cooking pack’, plus a now rising number of sales where some MDAs were sourced on-line, this meant by 2018 a significant proportion of specialist sales now included a ‘full set’ of integrated MDAs (i.e. cooking products plus refrigeration, dishwasher and laundry).
In the last few years the proportion of studio projects including no major integrated MDAs (usually meaning all MDAs are being sourced separately from a more cost-competitive channels) has settled at under 10%.
However, the average number of MDAs per kitchen has continued to rise, with an ever-increasing proportion of sales containing four cooking products (i.e. two ovens, hob, extractor) plus dishwasher and two refrigeration. The proportion of studio sales containing an integrated laundry model, however, is still under 50%.
*All figures from JKMR’s UK Integrated MDA Report 2024. Refers only to products sold as part of an overall new kitchen project, not where MDAs are being replaced or added to an existing kitchen.