25th July 2022

The Pulse is the monthly tracking survey of merchants’ confidence and prospects from MRA Research and, according to the latest edition, just under 90% percent of builders’ merchants in May were hit by supplier price rises. Over 80% suffered some level of product availability problems too, as the UK deals with global and geopolitical problems.

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Other findings reveal that merchants’ sales expectations, quarter-on-quarter, remain strong overall, even though they have weekend for the third consecutive month. A net +36% expect May to July sales to increase compared to the previous three months (February to April). Looking further ahead, the findings show that A net +26% of merchants expect sales to grow in the six months May to October, compared to the previous six months. Regionally, expectations are particularly strong for merchants in Scotland (+75%). Expectations are weaker in the North (+5%) and South (+8%). Year-on-year, the survey found that confidence in the market continued to decline, with a net -10% of merchants less confident in May than the same month in 2021.

The results of the full survey provides a detailed analysis and can be downloaded, free of charge, from the MRS Research website here.

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