BRC announced that non-food sales in the UK grew 2.6% in June 2015. GfK Point of Sales data for the UK shines more light onto the categories that are delivering this performance.
GfK’s Head of Home and Lifestyle, Daniel Fearnley explains, “Our nursery category has returned growth of 8% for car seats and 6.5% for strollers this June. While the DIY sector would normally be expected to struggle when the focus turns to seasonal spending there were areas that delivered solid growth. Power tools were prominent among them recording 12.7% value growth versus June 2014, which can be put down to an element of consumers trading up to higher specified models as they perhaps feel more confident with their disposable income.
The gardening sector is always impacted by the vagaries of our weather and this June was no exception, here we saw seasonal spend increase across weed killers, pest & disease products, fertilizers, compost and big ticket garden structure solutions. While the gardening care products are clearly impacted by our weather the garden structure performance, like other big ticket items, is indicative of consumers feeling it’s the right time to make major purchases and actually doing it.
This is borne out by the positive sales seen in the white goods sector where 7 of the 9 major categories grew on June 2014 with tumble dryers and cooking leading the way with close to double digit value growth.
In GfK’s lifestyle sector the watches market grew by 6.9% in value and luggage by 3.1% as people geared up for their summer breaks. The British love affair with the kitchen remains undiminished, with food preparation products growing by 42% which while the impact of TV (Great British Bake Off) does filter through to sales, there is clearly the healthy living lifestyle in play, while we cannot get by without our morning fix of coffee or tea as hot beverage makers are growing at 24.8%.
In digital products the continued take up of wearable technology continues apace with growth of more than 240% this June as these products become ever more ubiquitous and appealing to a sizeable part of the population.
Clearly these figures are a reflection of growing consumer sentiment in the British shopper as illustrated by the GfK headline consumer confidence figure recorded this June.
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