IAN BELL
Global Lead, Home and Tech Industries Euromonitor International

Abstract

The following is an overview of the presentation I made at Cleaning Products Europe, in Amsterdam in March of 2019. 

The presentation focused on change and in some cases the absence of real change we have seen in the home care industry over the last decade. Latterly it moves on to the subject of Auto Alchemy, our term for a future smart in-home laundry experience which pulls together seven strands of technology to deliver the value-added experience we strongly believe consumers are looking for.

FROM PIGS TO BREXIT

Looking back at the first time I presented at Cleaning Products Europe (way) back in 2011 there are still many parallels relating to the pressures the industry is experiencing today. In 2011, Europe was still looking for recovery from the global financial crisis and the disruption in the Eurozone. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain were all major concerns, and all posted shrinking value sales as consumers re-evaluated spending within this new reality. 2019 sees all but Greece now returning to ‘normal’ market conditions, but in 2019 we now have Brexit as a significant challenge to market stability. Although the landscape changes on a daily basis, a worst-case scenario for the UK would see a disorderly ‘no deal’ Brexit (we give this an 8-18% chance of actually happening) hammer home care sales in the UK by 3.5%, through until 2022.

CHANGING RETAIL WORLD

Also connected to changing economic conditions we reported in 2011 the huge rise of private label products and especially in Spain, driven not least by Mercodona which saw this product category take a third share of value sales, far more than that take ...