Home & Garden sector booms during Covid-19
Almost every sector has been feeling shockwaves from the coronavirus crisis this year, with the retail and hospitality industry suffering especially here in the UK. But throughout the whole pandemic, there’s one area in particular that has boomed in sales during Covid-19 – namely, the Home and Garden sector.
Home and Garden is one of our three specialist sectors here at 21Digital, and we have 17 years of experience gaining a deep understanding of how customers engage and interact with businesses in these sectors. In recent months, we’ve been focused on helping our clients adapt their digital presences to the new challenges posed by the crisis. We’ve achieved some very encouraging results!
Explaining the success of the Home and Garden sector
The Home and Garden sector has undeniably benefited from one key factor – lockdown. With the British population confined to their homes for the duration, people decided to invest in their homes and get on with some ambitious DIY and garden projects.
In the days leading up to lockdown, between the 9th and the 15th of March, national online sales of home improvement and gardening retail products boomed by 50%, in comparison to the same period in 2019. And as you’d expect, the lockdown measures also meant a dramatic acceleration in the shift to online purchases away from in-person buying at bricks and mortar stores. Online sales reached a notable peak in May, when they accounted for 33.4% of total spending, compared with 30.8% in April.
Online visibility is more important than ever
So while the Home and Garden sector boomed as a whole, the businesses that enjoyed particular success were those that had excellent visibility in the search engines, such as our clients here at 21Digital.
This put them in a solid position to stay connected with their customers, allowing them to continue buying goods and services even as they were forced to close the doors of their physical stores.
That meant we were pretty busy ourselves throughout lockdown, helping our clients adapt their own websites to ensure that they were communicating delivery information, operation changes and other important business updates. Now with the strictest lockdown measures lifted and with more Home and Gardens clients joining us, we’re dedicated to helping them maintain this success going forward, using our years of expertise to help them adapt to future challenges, and capitalise on key opportunities for success.
For a quick example of what we’re talking about, feel free to take a look at how we delivered an extra special Summer Sale for longstanding client Kitchen Design Centre. Or, if you want to find out how we can help you, give us a call on 01254 660 560, or email us on hello@21digital.agency. Let’s talk!
