Celebrating The Pulse’s 50th report – and looking for new sponsors!
This summer saw The Pulse’s 50th monthly trend survey of builders’ merchants’ sales expectations and confidence. Sadly, it was the last in the series. Although it would be more accurate to say ‘au revoir’ rather than adieu, as it can be revived, should it find a sponsor.
We started The Pulse with the intention of providing Professional Builders’ Merchants (PBM) magazine and the industry with a ‘must read’ that would track the sector through interesting times. Little did we know how interesting and challenging those times would become! During Covid, we tracked the number of merchants fully open for business, those open for click-and-collect, and those who stayed shut.
Then we tracked the massive rollercoaster as merchants came out of lockdown and the home improvement market rocketed up, before subsiding and recovering again. Then everything ran out of stock and supply chain problems took centre stage. And then inflation kicked in.
Throughout it all, merchant’s confidence in their own business has consistently outshone their confidence in the market.
I can honestly say that it’s one of the few surveys that’s a must-read for me. I always scan it quickly as soon as the figures come together, as it takes the pulse of builders’ merchants, and gets under their skin through the merchants’ comments.
Aside from hitting 50, why are we stopping? Well, we started it as our own marketing for MRA Research. What could be more effective than a high profile, regular example of what we do? But it’s not cheap to do it properly.
For a survey to be robust enough to report trends confidently by size and type of merchant, and by region, it needs a representative sample of merchants nationally. That takes a good database, and some expertise – plus we do it quickly, in 2-3 days, so it’s as fresh as it can be.
In the back of our mind, we always envisaged asking a sponsor at some point to shoulder the cost in return for star billing.
So, if you want to build your brand by sponsoring The Pulse, contact mike@mra-research.co.uk to find out more.
