News for Tool Hire, Equipment Hire & Plant Hire and Rental Professionals

Wickes builds confidence

20 September 2022

Wickes builds confidence

Interim results last week from the DIY retailer Wickes surpassed City expectations and perhaps showed how unwise it is to talk prematurely of a general market slowdown.

While an earlier trading update from the company in July had mentioned “signs of softening” in the DIY sector, Wickes – which was demerged from Travis Perkins last year – still reported at the time 5.4 per cent growth in like-for-like sales in the second quarter. 

For the half year, Wickes’s figures show a decrease of 5 per cent in its core DIY market, but this was more than offset by 29.7 per cent growth in sales to trade customers. 

And that’s surely an encouraging sign for tool hire companies because professionals will need equipment for the jobs they are undertaking. 

Indeed, Wickes believes it will still meet its profit guidance for the full year. 

DIFM (do it for me) is the term that Wickes uses for the trade customer base and its order book remains “significantly ahead of the prior year.” 

David Wood, chief executive, commented: 

“In DIY, we continue to cater for an increased number of younger customers who first turned to home improvement during the pandemic, while in DIFM, delivered showroom sales have remained robust as we launched new kitchen and bathroom ranges and worked through the elevated order book.

“As previously stated, we have seen some softening in the DIY market from the very high levels of demand experienced during the pandemic. However, we continue to outperform the wider home improvement market and our confidence in our long term strategy is unchanged.”


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