The Pulse: Merchants start the New Year with a spring in their step
Despite continuing strong headwinds, and the steady drip of gloomy news from Westminster and Fleet Street, Merchant sales expectations for the first quarter, and the first half of the year, are unexpectedly robust.
Price rises are a continuing concern, but confidence in the market is rebuilding. Merchants’ confidence in the prospects for their own businesses has bounced back very strongly.
Looking ahead, we used the Builder’s Merchants Omnibus Survey to ask merchants about the forecast loss of trade customers, as older tradespeople retire and are not replaced by a similar number of young tradespeople. Merchants seem poorly prepared for this demographic challenge.
The Pulse, by MRA Research, is a monthly tracking survey of merchants’ confidence and prospects. Telephone interviewing took place between 4th and 6th January 2023 (3 working days).
MRA Research has launched a new Builders’ Merchants Omnibus Survey. Find out how you can benefit from the monthly survey on Pages 24-26.
The Pulse is a monthly trends survey that tracks builders’ merchants’ confidence and prospects over time and is produced by MRA Research, the market research division of MRA Marketing. View all reports here.
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