As the kitchen and bathroom industry navigates economic uncertainties, Häfele is stepping up to help its customers build resilience and prepare for an anticipated market recovery in 2025.
Häfele’s support focuses on four areas: stock and speed of supply, support services, range expansion and product innovation to aid differentiation.
“As we all know, the kitchen and bathroom market has been unpredictable throughout 2024, with some major brands and retailers, unfortunately, succumbing to challenging economic circumstances,” said Richard Curtis, Managing Director of Häfele.
“In response, over the past 12 months, we’ve made strategic decisions in our business to support our customers in building resilience in theirs. We are cautiously optimistic for a recovery through 2025 and are doing all we can to help our partners prepare for an upturn.”
One of those strategic decisions is Häfele’s stock and supply chain. With inventory challenges cited as a significant concern for retailers, given the unpredictable market demand, Häfele has boosted its stock levels. “Many businesses can’t afford to be sitting with high levels of inventory, but they need to be able to respond more quickly,” added Richard.
“As a manufacturer and a distributor, we’ve increased our stock holding to support our customer base but also invested into our supply chain infrastructure to increase speed and agility.”
Richard continued: “Appliance availability is just one area of investment for us in 2024. Along with our premier partners Smeg, Rangemaster and Rayburn, earlier in the year we also partnered with Samsung to supply its major domestic appliances (MDA) to KBB and merchant sectors. Now, we can offer a market-leading 48-hour delivery on a range of appliance brands to retailers and their customers.”
Support services have been a further area of expansion and consolidation for Häfele, recognising that many within the KBB sector are working with reduced personnel and resources. Expanding on its added-value service, Häfele’s Service+ covers aspects from technical product advice and support, planning and specification advice, to custom- manufactured solutions and help with showroom or installation demonstrations, all designed to help customers at various ‘pinch points’.
As well as supporting customer resilience, Häfele has also continued its history of innovation by launching new, stand out products and extending top-performing ranges. “There are signs of a recovery through 2025, although probably not until the second half of the year,” added Richard. “It’s a case of when, not if, so retailers, in particular, need to be prepared and have carved out their differentiator with a strong product offer.”
To help retailers stand out in a competitive marketplace, Häfele has launched 2,000 new products in 2024, including intelligent lighting and appliances, on-trend styles and colourways across splashbacks, handles and drawers and introduced innovations from GRASS and Hawa to the UK shores. “We’ll be continuing 2025 in the same vein,” concluded Richard. “We’ve been listening hard to our customers and in the new year you can expect more new innovative products and new programmes to support our customers to build and strengthen their business for the year ahead.”
