At the time of gathering the data for this report, our sector had yet to experience the more widespread scale and impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Nevertheless, it’s been a slow start for timber and joinery sales.
Year-on-Year
Total builders’ merchant value sales in January 2020 were down 2.6% compared to January 2019. Seven categories sold less, with timber and joinery products weakest (-7%), followed by tools (-6.1%), which had its lowest average sales a day since BMBI data was first recorded in July 2014. Heavy building materials was down by 2.7%.
Month-on-month
Sales between January and December are always affected by a significant difference in the number of trading days (22 in January 2020 and 15 in December 2019). As a result, total January sales were up by 34.4%, and for timber and joinery this was up by 38.5%. However, average sales a day (adjusted) provides a more meaningful comparison, with January down by 8.4% compared to December. Like-for-like, timber and joinery sales were down by 5.5%.
Other periods
Sales in the 12 months February 2019 to January 2020 were down 0.5% on the same period a year earlier, with one less trading day. Four categories sold less: tools (-6.7%), timber and joinery products (-2%), plumbing, heating and electrical (-0.8%) and heavy building materials (-0.7%). The eight categories selling more over this period included landscaping (+2.9%), work wear and safety wear (+2.5%) and kitchens and bathrooms (+1.8%).
Index
January’s BMBI index was 105.3, with one additional trading day. Nine categories exceeded 100, with seasonal category plumbing, heating and electrical (128.9) doing best. The index for timber and joinery stood at 107.2.
