Europe’s hobby gardeners go shopping

The market for garden appliances and garden chemical products grew by 2.9 per cent in all in the first six months of 2015 in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium. The overall volume of sales was € 3.6 bn. Automowers and cordless appliances in particular continue to be popular with consumers, as evidenced by data collected by GfK at the spoga+gafa in Cologne.
In the countries looked at, sales of garden equipment and chemical products increased between January and June 2015 by 2.9 per cent compared with the same period in the previous year. The biggest rise in sales was in Germany, an increase of 4.8 per cent to € 1.4 bn in total. The French hobbygarden market came next with an increase of 4.6 per cent to € 1.3 bn. Belgium likewise posted an increase, with sales growing by 4.5 per cent to € 107 mio. In Great Britain and the Netherlands, sales declined by comparison with the previous year, falling by 2.3 per cent in Great Britain to € 715 mio and in the Netherlands by 6.9 per cent to € 88 mio.

Within the individual product segments, motorised garden equipment recorded the biggest growth in sales at 5.3 per cent (total sales: € 1.4 bn). Consumers were also enthusiastic about garden watering and cleaning appliances. Growth in all the countries under review came to 4.2 per cent in the first half of 2015, with combined sales of these pro­ducts in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium amounting to € 510 mio. Hand tools, on the other hand, exhibited rather slower growth of 1.1 per cent (total sales: € 225 mio). As in the same period in the previous year, products from the biological-chemical segment showed the smallest growth in sales of 0.6 per cent to € 1.5 bn.
Automowers experienced high sales growth in the first six months of 2015 at 64 per cent. The average price of an automower in the first half of the year was around € 1 700. Sales of cordless appliances were also resurgent between January and June 2015 with a sales volume of € 192 mio, an increase of 33 per cent over the same period in 2014.