29 Mar 2016
A Major Opportunity
Unlike the CE category, which for many independent retailers has seen a decline in market share of 10 per cent for the first time since measurements began, the market share in major domestic appliances is positively buoyant.
The MDA market has increased by seven per cent over the past year, boosting the independent retailer’s share to around 20 per cent. This is thought to be helped by the growing built-in market, with increasing amounts of new-builds. And let’s not forget home improvement projects, which are also fuelling sales in this category.
This growing demand is beginning to make an impact on independent retailers, with MDAs now making up around 62 per cent of sales in 2015, up from 57 per cent in 2014.
Yet, there are areas in major appliances where indies are struggling compared with the market as a whole. One of these areas is American-style fridge-freezers, where they have a share of only 12 per cent compared with their share of cooling as a whole (19 per cent). This is perhaps because of space limitations when displaying larger models, but it is not to be dismissed as a source of increased revenue and important margin. However, these appliances are not necessarily to everyone’s tastes and, with our ever-decreasing new-build house sizes, are a limited market.
