Housewares industry faces fickle consumer - industry trends for 2003

DSN Retailing Today, Jan 6, 2003 by Mike Duff

CHICAGO -- The housewares market in 2003 finds consumers of two minds and vendors trying to find new ways to meet their divergent demands. Trends such as cocooning, casual living and retro design remain in place. Yet consumers seem to have a bit of a split personality, according to Lisa Casey Weiss, the International Housewares Show trend analyst.

"It's an odd kind of a trend," Weiss said. "They are looking for healthy things to do and health-conscious devices, like blood pressure monitors, but go out and have all indulgent desserts and buy ice cream makers."

A new item that's indicative of where the consumer purchasing dynamic and product evolution seem to converge into sales potential is a Rival programmable digital "smart" crock pot. "It comes with recipes that are designed for cooking in a crock pot," Weiss said. "You put in the ingredients and go. It's convenience-oriented but makes cooking-on-the-go better."

Evidence that the trend is playing out on sales floors comes from the holiday selling season. "The crock pot business is performing extremely well," Nicole Dowswell, a Kmart spokeswoman, said in mid-December.

Another of Weiss's trend predictions is the growth of tabletop, which retailers such as Zellers acknowledge. "We're really interested in the tabletop business," said Ron Connors, gmm for housewares and home decor. "We're finding that our customer is really into the gift portion of it, from crystal figurines to tabletop place settings to different gift crystal."

Weiss said that more traditional tabletop is advancing. Casual living isn't going away, she said, as it has become ingrained in the culture. However, formal dining for special occasions is regaining popularity.

The past year has seen changes in consumer spending in housewares, but that isn't new. It is, however, important. Although the housewares appliances category for example, experienced a 4.8% dollar sales decline, the power pressure washer appliance segment is humming, according to ACNielsen data. In the 52 weeks ending Nov. 11, 2002, power washers were up 67.4% in dollar volume after gains of 93.7% and 82.9% in the two previous 52-week periods. Other gainers were the household specialty product category, which includes multipurpose products, up 27.7% in the year ended Nov. 11, 2002, and household appliance accessories, the only other housewares category that was up with a 0.2% advance. The biggest slide was seen in air purifiers and cleaner appliances, down 13.2%; humidifiers and vaporizers, 11.5%; and vacuums and carpet cleaners, down 9.3%.

Another category, personal care appliances, is still gaining, though at 4.7% more modestly in the 52-weeks ended in November of this year than in the period before when it gained 10.8%.

The ACNielsen numbers are from checkout data and lack Wal-Mart input, but according to ACNielsen's Wal-Mart Channel Service, housewares appliance sales at the retailer are down, slipping 0.3%, while personal care appliances were up, in this case by 6.6%.