Buoyant housing market supports online home and garden searches
The booming housing market led to an increase in online searches for home and garden products in the third quarter of 2014.
Figures released in the BRC-Google Online Retail Monitor show that total search volumes for home and garden grew by 15% in the period compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
The report also shows that search volumes carried out on smartphones outpaced those on tablets with growth of 41% for smartphones and 22% for tablets.
BRC director general Helen Dickinson said: “This month’s monitor confirms yet again that technology is playing an increasingly significant part in all aspects of consumers’ lives. Possibly one of the biggest decisions a consumer will make, taking out a mortgage, is now heavily influenced by online research with our data showing that online mortgage searches correlate strongly with mortgage approvals.
“Given this trend, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing people take to the internet to decorate and furnish their homes as well as finding the funds to purchase them. Search volumes in the home and garden category have risen 15% compared with the same period last year. This is likely due to an increasingly healthy housing market as sales in these categories tend to be directly impacted by house sales.”
The growth rate of searches volumes on all devices for living room furniture outpaced all other home and garden categories in the quarter. Meanwhile, searches for lights and lighting and home décor and interior decorating experienced the most rapid growth on smartphones in the period while searches for blinds, shades and shutters saw the fastest tablet growth.
Peter Fitzgerald, retail director at Google, said: “A warm July led to slower year-on-year growth but that changed in August when ex-hurricane Bertha came to the UK leading to a marked increase in home searches. The August bank holiday also brought an increase in home searches as the UK looked to home improvement over the last long weekend before Christmas. Furniture and furnishings were particularly popular this summer as we used the summer to redecorate. While garden searches grew slower this quarter – evidence of the early summer we had this year.”
All areas of UK experienced growth in home and garden search volumes across all devices but most significantly in smartphone searches.
London accounted for 28% of the total proportion of home and garden searches in the quarter which was the highest of all areas of the UK. This was followed by the South East at 13% and the North West at 10%.
