Report Summary

Period covered: 03 January – 30 January 2021

Note: Reporting periods are either one month or two months behind the current month as standard.

Stand out performance

• DIY & Gardening sales growth slowed in January, rising by 2.5% year-on-year – the weakest performance since February 2020.
• This was against a weak comparison a year ago when sales growth fell by 1.8%.
• Resultantly, sale growth underperformed the three-month and 12-month averages of 9.8% and 4.7% respectively.

Market composition

• DIY & Gardening outperformed the overall sector, given its “essential” status and strong underlying consumer motivations to improve their home environments.
• Retail sales fell by 1.7% in January, year-on-year, according to the Retail Economics Retail Sales Index (value, non-seasonally adjusted, exc. Fuel).
• There was a sharp polarisation between the performance of food (+9.1%) and non-food (-12.2%).

Online channel

• Growth was supported by the online channel with online household goods sales growth accelerating by 112.9% in January year-on-year.
• Notably, online sales of Household Goods accounted for 34.2% of total retail sales in January, 20 percentage points higher than a year ago.
• The data suggests that consumers are more effortlessly transitioning to lockdown shopping habits, switching to online channels which they discovered during previous lockdowns.

2021 Outlook

• Our latest forecast for the DIY & Gardening sector is for sales to rise by 2.2% on the previous year in 2021 due to continued enthusiasm for home renovations.
• Granted, as the economy reopens there is likely to be a shift away from some retail categories to hospitality and leisure sectors.
• However, demand is likely to remain strong in both DIY and gardening segments as reunions with family and friends are held at home outdoors, at least at the start of easing restrictions.

DIY and Gardening spend remains in positive territory