Page 34 - HW May 2022

global eyes
Wickes makes good progress on its own
While some UK DIY players are launching their own marketplaces, Wickes has instead joined the eBay Marketplace.
Wickes is offering the UK’s 28 million active eBay shoppers around 2,000 SKUs spread across more than 20 categories (including flooring, paint, tiles, power tools and hardware and with more coming).
Having demerged from the Travis Perkins group, in its current reporting period for the full year to January 2022, Wickes has done well, with top line growth of over twice the rate of the market, +14% to £1.53 billion, with like- for-like sales +13% on 2020 and +18.6% on 2019.
Online is clearly on the radar, indeed in the first half of its financial year Wickes reported that two thirds of its sales were driven by digital with sales +32.5% to £812 million.
Having said this, Wickes is also accelerating its store refit programme, which is now expected to be completed within five years, with 12-15 of its
232 stores refitted a year and having identified potential for up to 20 new stores over the next five years.
www.wickesplc.co.uk
Bullish Aussie homewares pureplayer moves into DIY
TEMPLE & WEBSTER, said to be Australia’s largest pure play online retailer in the furniture and homewares market, this month moved into the AU$26 billion home improvement market with the launch of The Build by Temple & Webster (www. thebuild.com.au), a new online-only B2C store for all things DIY, renovation, and home improvement.
The Build has launched with an initial range of 20,000+ products across 39 categories including bathroom fixtures (vanity units, toilets, sinks, tapware, bathtubs), kitchen fixtures (cupboards, sinks, taps), indoor and outdoor lighting fixtures, ceiling fans, blinds & curtains, and wallpaper.
New categories such as flooring and tiling, outdoor living and landscaping, tools and building/renovation equipment will also be added in the coming months and a B2B program developed.
Having seen the Covid-driven shift towards online at first hand, Temple & Webster describes the opportunity for The Build as “significant” and is looking to its new home improvement venture to double the AU$16 billion it already sells in B2C furniture and homewares.
In terms of the direct competition, Temple & Webster Chief Executive Officer Mark Coulter has called Bunnings and Mitre 10 “great retailers”, cheekily thanking Bunnings specifically for having done “an amazing job to educate Australians about
the benefits of DIY, renovating or doing design jobs – big or small.”
Temple & Webster however believes the Australian home improvement is currently “significantly underpenetrated with respect to online adoption,” with only 4% migrated online compared to the UK which has an online penetration rate of 25% and growing.
In this respect, Mark Coulter says:
“The market is very big. It is still growing. There is definitely room for an online-only player which has the breadth of what we are planning across multiple categories to really be that first-stop shop, and provide customers with the convenience and value that the online channel has over stores.”
The Build complements Temple & Webster’s core furniture and homewares business, offering opportunities for cross selling, as well as leveraging its core technology platform, digital marketing and data expertise, and sharing functions such as logistics and supply chain management.
Initial investment into The Build across FY22 and FY23 will be of the order of AU$10 million, funded from existing cash reserves.
The new venture is expected to make
a material revenue contribution and be EBITDA positive in FY26 and its long-term margin profile is expected to be better than Temple & Webster’s current Furniture & Homewares category.
www.templeandwebster.com.au www.thebuild.com.au
32 NZHJ | MAY 2022
MORE AT www.hardwarejournal.co.nz