The Boom of Homemovers and How Retailers Can Take Advantage

Posted by TwentyCi on 17th August 2021 -

The property market is undoubtedly the most active it has been for as long as most of us can remember, and this is presenting challenges for the industry in terms of supply and moreover, the struggle to process transactions at anything like a normal pace.

Recently we have been looking at the positive trickle-down impact across the wider economy, as the record numbers of homemovers start to invest in their new homes and the significant spend that flows into the retail sector as a result.

Normally, 1 million owner occupied properties are sold each year, but today, there are 2.2 million properties in the home moving journey with owners that retail businesses would want to talk to, split across 4 homemover audiences.

This current increased volume of movers is an exceptional wave that will not be here forever, so now is the time for marketeers to act to target this audience effectively.

Each owner occupied homemover spends on average £42,000 incrementally as a result of their move, so if you are a switched-on retailer, you should be taking steps to ensure they spend it with you and not your competitors

Across our upcoming blog posts, we will be looking at the types of homemover audiences, and the geographic location of these audiences. 

But first, let us put this all into context...

We are clearly living in unprecedented times - as of this week, the whole of the UK will once again be fully open for business, after what frankly was the biggest shock to the health of a nation and its economy in living memory.

There is a limited time window for marketeers to be able to reap the benefits associated with this wave of additional spend associated with a full reopening of services.

Nowhere is this more apparent than our increased homemover audiences. 

Homemover Background

TwentyCi have many clients who have a vested interest in attracting homemovers to shop with them.

TwentyCi has a unique focus on the value to many sectors provided by homemovers and to those businesses operating in retail, utilities, telecommunications, financial services, automotive, travel and leisure, and of course not forgetting the property sector itself.

But why?

Firstly, for retailers of the typical products and services associated with a homemover, these movers can represent a significant portion of your business activities. This ranges from a low of c.20% of sales in some sectors and increases dramatically for others where a homemover can represent the majority of your revenues.

Furthermore, typically homemovers tend to have a higher basket size than non-homemovers; a typical spend premium is approximately 30% more. As such, homemovers are also where a disproportionate amount of turnover and profit originates from.

On average, and in “normal” times, an owner occupied homemover will incrementally spend £42,000 in the course of their move, which is worth some £50 billion to the UK economy per annum.

However, these are far from “normal” times. It is crucial is to understand that as we emerge from the pandemic with the largest demand for property seen in the last 15 years since our data began, we also have the largest retail opportunity.

This effectively means that for a limited time there will be significantly more homemovers in market to buy retailers' products than in a normal market, and the time to be focussed on this opportunity is now.