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2022 Holiday Season Guide: Home & Garden

What should Home & Garden retailers be looking for in terms of buyer trends this holiday season? We took a look at transactional data from the US, Germany and the UK to find out.
Lucas Jones
3 min read
29 November 2022

In the second of our e-commerce ‘Holiday Season Guides’ series, we take a look at how the Home & Garden category has been faring in 2022, and where marketers of retailers and brands should be investing their resources in over the coming weeks. 

What has happened this year so far?

During the pandemic, Home & Garden products saw a surge in sales, as people were forced to stay at home, and set up offices where they lived. e-commerce-only Home & Garden retailers, such as Wayfair thrived during the pandemic, seeing a 55 percent increase in revenue in 2020. But as offline retail has returned fully in 2022, their revenues and active customer numbers have dropped by double digits.

Grips data confirms this trend with additional compounding matters, such as the increase in interest rates in each of the three markets that we have monitored resulting in reduced purchases and construction of new homes. As a result, sub-categories related to home improvements and new home construction, including lighting, tiles, kitchen and bath fixtures have shown a marked drop in category share. 

Regionally speaking, the e-commerce Home & Garden market in Germany and the UK saw the most dramatic reductions in transactions in 2022, compared to last year, with the UK seeing a 37 percent drop and Germany seeing online transactions fall by nearly half. Despite the drop in transactions across the US, Germany and the UK, consumers were actually spending more per order with Average Order Values increasing in each of the three markets, outstripping the respective national inflation rates, likely driven by continued gaps between previously high demand and supply. Retailers with physical stores are most likely to be best placed to absorb the drop in e-commerce transactions. 

Beyond the declines outlined above, there are growth opportunities. Specifically, when we look at specific sub-categories, or the types of products driving sales for e-commerce retailers, we can see some interesting trends. In the US, for instance, tableware and cookware products are doing better than last year suggesting a return to more in-home entertaining, which is a bright point for the category.

Whilst there is a trend towards hosting at home in the US, UK consumers are becoming more introspective with a trend towards nesting and relaxation similar to early pandemic days. The bedding sub-category (blankets, duvets and pillows) has seen a rise in share of Home & Garden transactions in 2022. There is also more of a trend for cooking at home, as Brits cut down on eating out and takeaways, with kitchen gadgets and appliances, such as air fryers seeing a rise in sales. 

Where should marketing teams invest this holiday season?

For digital marketing, most Home & Garden transactions come from Direct or Organic Search, meaning that consumers already know the retailer or product that they are looking for before buying online, and likely underscores the importance of having a bricks and mortar presence so that consumers can see the product in person. Paid Search has also been an important channel for Home & Garden retailers in 2022, with between 25 percent and 37 percent of transactions from digital traffic coming from the channel across the three markets. 

 

Unsurprisingly, the most visual social channels are more likely to convert into transactions for the Home & Garden categories. In the UK, Facebook and Instagram account for over three-quarters of transactions from social channels. In the US and Germany, Pinterest and YouTube are the preferred social channels for Home & Garden consumers. 

To get even more insights into how consumer trends will impact the 2022 holiday shopping season, download our free report.