Identifying opportunities in a challenging retail market

The Sirius Buying Group is a membership organization of 195+ independent retailers in the UK. The company works with an extensive range of global home appliance manufacturers, distributors, and kitchen furniture suppliers to ensure these local stores can meet their domestic and commercial customers’ requirements. The company supported its members during the pandemic and is working to help them survive and thrive in the current costof-living crisis. One of the ways it achieves this is through its strong working relationship with the consumer specialists and MDA and SDA market experts at GfK.

The Sirius business philosophy is to provide a big-picture market perspective and ensure that members can optimize and tailor their offering to individual markets. The company provided much-needed support during the lockdowns of the pandemic when demand was high. Almost immediately after, high inflation added a new obstacle, making it harder for retailers to drive sales, especially in the Major Domestic Appliances (MDA) and Small Domestic Appliances (SDA) categories. Sirius Buying Group approached GfK to help identify opportunities for growth. 

The Sirius Buying Group organizes several annual events including an annual conference and Trade Show which has come to be regarded as a prerequisite for success in the electrical retail industry. The insight and experiences shared at these events provide an exclusive resource to increase business growth and establish a return-on-relationship mentality with a focus on loyalty and recommendations. The annual conference continued online during the pandemic when the business updates from approved suppliers and the wider market helped support market resilience and propose retail opportunities for members despite market conditions. To continue to share insights with members, GfK was invited to present at the 2023 conference to discuss ways to maximize current and emerging opportunities.