Brooke House Exhibitions (BHE), which organises the Exclusively Housewares exhibition on behalf of the British Home Enhancement Trade Association (BHETA), has announced that it is undertaking a two year project that will culminate in the creation of a dedicated hall for its small domestic appliance exhibitors in 2015.
Exclusively Housewares, which runs annually in June at the Business Design Centre in London, is perceived to be one of the key events within the housewares industry.
It is attended by key buyers from across the UK, and across all types of retail channels, including the leading independent cook shops, high street, grocery, out of town and department stores, along with garden centres, e-commerce sites and TV and catalogue retailers.
The 2013 show attracted its biggest audience to date, with visitor numbers up on 2012 by just over 6%. In addition, visitors came from around the world, with the highest number of representatives coming from Ireland, the Netherlands, France, the Czech Republic, Estonia, the US, China and India, opening up welcome export opportunities for exhibitors.
Through its close links with BHETA housewares members the show’s board has been able to respond to the growth in certain product areas and retail channels and adapt its marketing strategy and product mix for the show accordingly. The increasing levels of interest in the small electrical product sector from both suppliers and buyers has led the BHE Board to commit to increasing the number of SDA suppliers at the show in 2014, with a view to featuring a dedicated hall for this product area at the show in 2015.
Simon Boyd, show director, commented: “Our interest in this sector will include all the small electrical product categories as reported on by GfK; linencare, electrical cooking, including microwaves, beverage making, food preparation and floorcare.
“The show will implement a proactive marketing campaign to ensure that the relevant suppliers in these sectors, and the appropriate buyers from our current visiting companies, and from the electrical retail sector, are aware of the show’s increased SDA offer.”
William Jones, chairman of BHE and housewares sector director of BHETA, commented, “SDA have always played a key strategic role in the development of the overall market and from a consumers’ perspective are a key factor when considering products to facilitate home cooking, baking and cleaning. As consumers look for more colour and material co-ordination in the kitchen this is a great opportunity for the industry to adopt a more collective and co-ordinated approach to the market.”
Exclusively Housewares already has a significant number of SDA exhibitors as part of the product mix at the show, including Ascaso, Bamix, Bodum, Bugatti, De’Longhi, Dualit, Graef, Horwood Homewares, Hostess, Jura, Kenwood, Meyer, Morphy Richards, Salter, Severin, Swan, Tefal and Vitamix.
In addition, Starbucks used this year’s show to launch its new 580 Verismo™ single cup coffee system via its new distributors EPE International.
All of these exhibitors were canvassed at the 2013 show on the possibility of creating a dedicated SDA area.
Simon Boyd added: “The majority were enthusiastic, as they do not currently have a trade show dedicated entirely to their sector.
“We will prove to our SDA exhibitors that we can find and deliver an audience for their products, which still includes all of our current visitors. Equally we are confident there will be a welcome crossover of interest from SDA buyers in the show’s mainstream housewares offer.”
He continued, “Housewares is a sector which works well, not only as a practical, but also as a lifestyle category, for retailers. On the one hand we have more suppliers wishing to exhibit alongside mainstream housewares companies – the increase in the number of small domestic appliance ranges and suppliers taking part in the show is a good example of this – but we can also see that retailers of all types are improving and extending their housewares range because of the choice and leading edge design suppliers can offer them.
“Our exhibitors are very helpful in keeping us up to date on their new customers and helping us to find potential customers to invite – it really is an industry effort to make sure the right people attend.
“We are confident that we can maintain the environment, hospitality and ‘invited buyers only’ style of Exclusively Housewares that makes it such a popular show with suppliers and buyers alike, whilst undertaking this SDA project. It is not a decision taken lightly and we look forward to seeing it evolve steadily over the next couple of years.”
