HARDI Recovery Survey: Summer Optimism, Uptick in COVID Cases
Survey offers snapshot of the industry
HARDI received results from the second Pulse recovery survey on July 10. While it remains more of a "snapshot" than statistically significant, more than half of the participants indicated this summer will be better than the summer of 2019.
Looking at the year in full, participants projected sales would be up 1 percent. Individual answers ranged from 30 percent down to 21 percent up.
Segment Trends
Forty-five percent are seeing an increase in replace jobs (up considerably over last month's 30 percent). Eleven percent report more repair jobs, down from sixteen percent.
Nearly half describe the residential new construction segment as doing normally. One-third describe it as performing below normal while only 19 percent see it as doing better than usual.
On the commercial new construction side, 57 percent indicate below-average performance while only 9 percent see it as better than usual.
Human Resources
COVID-19 presence among member companies moved upward. While 12 percent reported having a new case or cases within the organization in the previous two weeks, that is up from only 7 percent in the earlier survey.
More than two-thirds describe employees as having "relaxed about COVID but are still somewhat concerned," while 27 percent report employees and customers as remaining "very concerned."
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Three percent responded as no longer concerned.
Inventory and Customer Preferences
At 53 percent, a slim majority of survey participants report that they are experiencing delays of two to three weeks.
Twenty-seven percent report one-month delays, while six percent are dealing with delays of two months or more.
Fourteen percent are seeing delays of one week or less.
Finally, distributor perceptions of how customers are preferring to get their equipment is essentially unchanged from the last survey. Delivery remains most popular, and curbside remains the least popular. The only shift was in the middle, with counter and will call preferences shifting positions.
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