Since the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the world, so much has changed since early 2020, including the surge in the home improvement industry. With an increase in working from home or being out of work, people have been spending more time identifying updates or changes needed to be made to their home. Whether it is a new home office, an updated bathroom, a gym, a sunroom, or new windows and doors, people have been calling home improvement companies to get these projects done. This increased demand coupled with raw material delays and COVID protocols is a tremendous challenge for these companies to overcome getting these projects completed.
A New Era for Home Improvement
Even with financial blows to so many consumers, home improvement companies have seen substantial increases in demand as people spend more time at home trying to make their living spaces more comfortable by making improvements. These include room expansions & updates, bathroom updates, creating more living space through sunrooms and decks as well as beautifying their home with exterior work, such as siding. Through consumer surveys, at least 50% of homeowners have identified ways to improve their living spaces between March and May 2020. According to NPR, Porch.com tracked at least 330 million Google searches for home improvement work, up almost 50% from the previous year. Due to closings from lockdowns and decreased interest rates, 2020 sales for home improvement contractors saw a steady increase throughout the year. Big box stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot saw substantial increases in their quarterly sales reports during the midst of the pandemic. This has caused strain to businesses and manufacturers as they deal with an influx in orders and a lack of both production crews and products needed to install new projects.
Unprecedented Times Lead to Delays
Home improvement wasn’t the only industry impacted by an increase in sales due to the COVID pandemic. Many industries were experiencing this struggle. As stimulus checks rolled out and consumers reallocated vacation and leisure activity funds, spending increased. Consumers were investing money in everything related to making their homes more comfortable. This ranges from furniture, pools, new gym equipment, and other vast arrays of dream home projects. In turn, as they spent, they were faced with long delays in receiving their goods. In some cases, they were told they needed to wait up to a year to receive what they purchased. The reason... demand was high but supply was short. With fewer people able to perform the necessary duties needed to generate the purchased products due to COVID limitation, manufacturers could produce less. The supply chain was slowed globally and it impacted every business's ability to operate in 2020.
Comfort Windows & Doors Is Here to Support You Through Your Project Install
Since the restart of business operations in mid-May of 2020, Comfort Windows has been tackling every challenge put in its path to serve our Upstate New York communities as best as possible. With the lack of production crews, increased COVID guidelines, and supply shortages, customers have experienced substantially slower installation lead times than in previous years. Through these challenging times, we know how important transparency is. Comfort Windows & Doors strives to do our best to keep our customers up to date on their project status all the way up to their installation date. We have been continually improving our communication efforts extending from email to texting to the traditional phone call in order to better serve our customers. This also includes turning our website into more of a customer communication portal. If you have a current project with Comfort and have questions or concerns about the status of your project, we encourage you to visit our project status page today on our website. We’ve made a lot of changes, but we’re not done yet. We will continue to improve throughout 2021 with the goal of making it easier for us to communicate with our customers regarding their projects. The Comfort team looks forward to making your dream project come to life as swiftly as possible in 2021.
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