NEWS
THE BP BAROMETER – MARKET STARTING TO COOL? IN BRIEF
September www.ggpmag.com
• Allumette Group, the
parent company of powder
coater, Vertik-Al and louvre
specialist, Ikon Aluminium
Systems, has invested in
cleaner vehicles to support its
efforts in minimising
emissions and reducing its
carbon footprint.
All company cars have been
replaced with electric or
hybrid models and the
delivery fl eet has been
upgraded to low emission
large goods vehicles (LGV).
The expenditure is said to
represent one million pounds
worth of investment.
The group has installed EV
charge points at its premises
on Yardley Brook Industrial
Park in Birmingham, ensuring
that both employees and
visitors have access to the
infrastructure required to run
and maintain an electric
vehicle.
Group managing director
for Allumette Group, Angus
Mackie, said: “We are
committed to reducing the
environmental impact of our
businesses. This means
exploring every opportunity
for a greener and cleaner
alternative.
“We are extremely pleased
at how receptive our
employees have been to the
adoption of electric and
hybrid vehicles. This is an
investment which makes sense
on many levels –
environmental, fi nancial and
for the longterm well-being of
our staff.
“The vehicle upgrades
follow an extensive overhaul
of our lighting system, last
year. By installing •–– new
lights we reduced our energy
consumption by over —–% on
traditional lighting and cut
carbon emissions by almost
™š–kg.”
Headline analysis by Neil Cooper-
Smith, senior analyst, Business Pilot:
There is a hint – only a hint – that some
of the heat is coming out of the market
and that end user-demand, for the
moment at least, may be dropping back
to more sustainable levels.
We reported last month that new
leads had dropped by % on June.
The caveat here was that June was a
‘monster’ month, up 6% on May,
which also saw exponential growth in
demand. This translated into this month
in an extension of lead times from initial
enquiry to conversion from an average
of 11 working days to ƒ.
With it evident that the pressure isn’t
only being felt by installers but that the
window and door supply chain as a
whole is ‘creaking’ under the pressure
of demand with shortages of glass;
some profi le types; hardware and
reinforcements a †‡% drop in sales in
August, may not be entirely unwelcome.
Leads also fell away on July, down
†6%. Combined, this might be cause
for concern – but we don’t believe we’re
there yet. Covid-‹, has rewritten the
rulebook. First, if we compare fi gures
for May and August, sales and leads are
pretty comparable, with sales and lead
generation in August still coming in a
few percentage points higher – so no
need to panic quite yet!
There may also be some specifi c
factors to take into account. The
miscommunication around the Green
Homes Grant may have temporarily
cooled the market a little but we don’t
believe it had a big impact on sales in
the longer term.
The far bigger infl uences are
unemployment, the end of the winding
down of the furlough scheme and the
housing market.
While the window and door industry
has seen a boom throughout the
summer, nationally, GDP to June fell by
†–.% – more than any other country.
With the furlough scheme coming to an
end, this has led to some fairly alarming
forecasts, including a warning from the
Bank of England that unemployment
could hit †.ƒm by Christmas.
This would suggest far tougher
trading conditions for window and door
companies by the end of the year – but
then this is Covid-‹ and as we have
highlighted, the ‘norms’, don’t apply.
At the same time as being in the
second deepest recession on record,
the UK is seeing a housing boom.
Figures from Nationwide this month
Sept, reveal prices soaring at their
fastest pace for 6-years at †%. This
it attributed to the release of latent
demand and the Stamp Duty holiday.
With the fortunes of the window
and door industry traditionally going
hand-in-hand with those of the housing
market, house price infl ation and high
levels of activity would suggest demand
will continue into the New Year, despite
potentially lower levels of consumer
confi dence in the main.
Either way, window and door sales
fi gures suggest a release of some
pressure from the market going into
the autumn. The fi nal notable change
to comment on is the increase seen
in average order values in August
compared to July. These increased from
an average of £‡,ƒƒ to £‡,86, a ‹%
uplift, which may indicate a shift away
from single purchases as seen over the
summer to wider replacement packages.
This would be consistent with increased
fragility in consumer confi dence as
a whole and the ‘running-out’ of
holiday refunds; plus a shift to more
comprehensive projects linked to
movement in the property market.
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