September 1, 2020 UK Businesses Benefit from Home Improvement Boom

The home improvement business is booming from builders, DIY stores, door specialists and garden centers.

Consumer habits have changed significantly during lockdown – along with practically every other type of human behaviour!

And while this has definitely been detrimental to many businesses, it has benefitted others. Supermarkets offering home delivery are obvious beneficiaries, but the home improvement industry has also boomed – according to a study from Aviva, 85% of UK residents have undertaken DIY tasks during lockdown.

Furthermore, even as lockdown eases, travel restrictions remain, meaning that some homeowners are choosing to spend this year’s holiday cash on sprucing up their abodes or even undertaking major refurbishments.

Here are a few businesses benefitting from the post-lockdown home improvement boom.

Builders

Many British householders are reporting anecdotally that it’s very tricky getting hold of builders right now, whether you fancy a home extension or a simple shed. And as long as tradesmen are allowed to continue working in physical premises for the foreseeable future, many firms could be sitting pretty with order books packed full for at least the next year.

DIY Stores

DIY stores were some of the first physical shops to reopen in the UK and patrons flocked to them for everything from lighting fixtures to toilet seats and picture hooks to cupboard door handles. Indeed, early in the pandemic the NHS and TV celebrity George Clarke issued a DIY warning because authorities feared that non-experts attempting ever more ambitious home improvement projects might end up clogging up hospital wards needed to cope with COVID-19.

Door specialists

While you can order doors from general home improvement stores, the quality usually doesn’t compare with the pristine portals available from specialist suppliers like Oakwood Doors, who continued to deliver doors to customers throughout the pandemic. Hanging a door isn’t exactly a simple DIY project, but ambitious home owners with more time on their hands have obviously been taking it on with some success!

Garden Centres

Gardening has long been hailed as one of the most cathartic activities so it’s no wonder that as soon as garden centres opened back up, green fingered customers were practically banging down the doors desperate to get their hands on begonias, bonsai trees, bird boxes and anything else that could enhance those dear green spaces which were treasured as sanctuaries even more than before. Naturally, new customers also started popping up at garden centres and grabbing everything from sunflower seeds to cress boxes, determined to return home with some sort of greenery to brighten their days should second lockdowns be imposed.

With the pandemic far from over, it’s unclear what the long term picture for these types of businesses will be, but at least their relative success in extremely testing times provides some measure of hope for the wider economy.

If more of us do remain working at home, hopefully we can find ways of supporting these and other businesses which are able to open their physical premises – bustling enterprises are good news for us all!

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