Severe losses in garden

Sales of the DIY stores in Germany with garden product ranges in the first four months of this year were 17.1 per cent or € 251.7 mio below the corresponding cumulative figure for last year. March was the month with the most severe losses, closing at 54.2 per cent below the previous year’s result. But then in April the DIY retailers’ garden centres and departments notched up 16 per cent more sales than in the same month last year. These figures were reported by Erich Huwer, chief executive of the Globus specialist stores and president of the BHB German DIY Retail Association, at the BHB Garden Congress in Hamburg. Both the long winter and the poor garden business have also had an adverse affect on the DIY sector overall. Up to April the DIY retail business in Germany had accumulated a sales deficit of 5.9 per cent (€ 364 mio). In April itself the DIY stores in Germany picked up once again, achieving sales that were 6.8 per cent higher than in the same month last year.