Could independents take a few lessons from the giant they love to hate? Nathan Damarell from KF Kitchens in Plymouth wonders if 2026 will be the year the independents’ biggest rival becomes their greatest opportunity…
Returning from the excellent KBSA Conference in Birmingham at the start of October, I couldn’t stop thinking about Wren and its role in this industry.
Their name came up a lot in discussions about many different topics and it was nearly always negative – to the point that the evening’s awards host Colin Murray got the audience on side by saying that if there’s one thing that unites us independents it’s that “we all hate Wren”. It was slightly tongue in cheek, of course, and it got plenty of laughs.
But it did make me think about the past year, what’s ahead, and whether we’re seeing Wren as the target in the right way.
Are Wren’s customers the ones we independents don’t want? Or should we see Wren as a model that might help us solve some of the industry’s biggest challenges?
Let’s look at the numbers – in 2015, Wren had just become the fifth-largest kitchen retailer by value. By 2023, they’d climbed to second place behind Howdens. Their 2023 sales were not far short of Magnet, Wickes, and B&Q combined. In 2024, Wren installed around 130,000 kitchens.
All the independents in the UK combined installed about 140,000. Those figures are staggering. Ten years ago, Wren wasn’t even a serious player, but now their success seems to mean that the overriding emotion among independents is one of frustration or even loathing towards them.
But let’s look at some of the challenges we face as independents.
The first is staff recruitment, especially installers. If we genuinely believe the independent sector is superior to Wren with better design, better project management and better products, then surely the best installers should want to install for you and not them? So are Wren the source of the installers we’re all looking for?
Another topic that came up at the conference was growth, or the lack of it. BSH in Germany recently announced there’s little prospect of any meaningful growth this year, while also confirming job cuts. If that’s the climate, but Wren is still installing 130,000 kitchens a year, then their customers should be our target.
I’ve heard of people spending over £30,000 with Wren so surely those are exactly the kind of customers we should be reaching if we want to grow our independent sector?
We also discussed finance. Many independents are hesitant to offer it as the paperwork can be daunting and the interest rates high, plus there’s also a belief that Wren customers only buy on finance. But I’d argue that a customer’s ability to repay doesn’t depend on where that finance comes from – whether it’s Wren, an independent, or a bank loan.
So is Wren’s success purely down to offering finance? If so, did Magnet, B&Q, Wickes, and the independents all miss a trick? I don’t think so. Finance makes buying easier, but it’s not necessarily the main reason people choose Wren. Still, it’s an option we shouldn’t ignore.
So here’s my conclusion: perhaps we should stop dismissing Wren and start learning from them. Their success isn’t just about price or finance, it’s about perception. Customers only know what they know. They don’t know what we know. Maybe we need to be better at getting that message across.
Looking ahead to 2026, there’s a huge market to go after. Wren is seen by customers as a large kitchen specialist. That puts them above the other nationals that sell multi-category home products.
In that sense, they’re more like us than we might admit. We often dismiss them because they’re a national chain but they’re still a specialist, operating right in our sector.
Finally, while writing this, a national rep dropped in. I asked him a simple question: out of all the independents you deal with, how many would you recommend to a friend or family member? His answer didn’t surprise me, though it might surprise you. “About 20%,” he said.
If that’s how someone inside the industry feels, what must the customer see? Maybe that’s why Wren has been so successful…