December delivers for furniture and flooring

Strong month for flooring and furniture sales

Furniture and lighting sales in England, Wales and Scotland climbed in December 2021 compared with November, but were below December 2020 and 2019, while flooring sales plunged but almost matched December 2019.

Furniture and lighting saw sales rise by 11% to £1.461bn compared with November 2021, according to Office for National Statistics data, but were 4.72% down on December 2020 and 3.11% lower than December 2019.

December 2021 was the sixth best month since January 1986, behind December 2020 (£1.53bn), December 2018 (£1.515bn), December 2019 (£1.507bn), September 2020 (£1.499bn) and June 2021 (£1.48bn).

Sales in 2021 totalled £14.78bn, up 12% on 2020 and 0.39% below 2019.

Flooring sales experienced the normal seasonal drop in December 2021, but sales almost matched December 2019.

Sales dropped by 25.28% compared with November 2021 to £136.656m, 102.6% higher than December 2020 and 0.79% below December 2019.

December 2021 was the 376th best month of 432 since January 1986.

Sales in 2021 totalled £1.7415bn (peaking in June at £193.7m), 30.1% higher than 2020 and 14.14% higher than in 2019.

To put the figures into context, September 2020 was the strongest pandemic period performance with sales of £204.996m, but that was the first time monthly sales had topped £200m since September 2014 (£234.9m).

The top 10 performing months remain March 2008 (£290.4m), September 2007 (£270.75m), March 1997 (£266.42m), June 1997 (£261.4m), November 2007 (£259m), March 2009 (£258.28m), June 2007 (£256.88m), December 1997 (£251.62m) and September 2009 (£251.39m).

The December data is preliminary and subject to revision.

Carpet Foundation to debut online home interest titles campaign

The Carpet Foundation is set to launch an online advertising campaign that will see 1.5m advertisements appear over a 10-week period.

The £20,000 campaign kicks off at the beginning of March and will run for three weeks, returning in May and the Autumn.

The objective is to promote Carpet Foundation independent retailers as the people to buy carpet from.

Four leading home interest magazine websites will be used: homesandgardens. com; livingetc.com; idealhome.com and realhomes.com. Each advertisement utilises one of four simple yet strong messages: ‘Before you choose your carpet, choose one of our experts’; ‘The first step in choosing your new carpet’; ‘Where you buy your new carpet is as important as what you buy’ and ‘The only carpet retailers with an approved Code of Practice’.

The advertisements direct consumers to the Carpet Foundation website.

The campaign will feature four advertisements

Inflation: up and down

Annual furniture inflation climbed further in December while flooring saw a slow in price rises.

Annual price inflation for household furniture rose from12.2% to 12.5% in the year to December 2021. A year earlier it was just 1.2%.

The rate for carpets and other floorcoverings fell from 8.8% to 7.8%. A year earlier it was 2.9%.

Among household textiles, inflation for bed linen jumped from 3% to 6.1%. A year earlier it was -4.1%.

The overall consumer prices index rose from 5.1% to 5.4%. In December 2020 it stood at 0.6%.

Sextet looks to May event

Six Belgian flooring manufacturers have proposed holding a joint At Home event in the Spring.

Balta Group, Beaulieu International Group, Belgotex International Group, Coretec Floors, Lano Carpets and Unilin Group have combined to organise Flanders Flooring Days from 2-5 May.

With no Domotex last month, the sextet will hope to attract visitors later in the year thanks to their geographic proximity and portfolio of brands.

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