How to buy a bathroom in 2022
In the Press: January 2022
We were featured in The Times commenting on How to Buy a Bathroom in the supply crisis our industry is currently facing.
Since late-2020, Tom Reynolds, the chief executive of the Bathroom Manufacturers Association (BMA), has been warning about the challenges in global shipping and UK haulage that has left many bathroom manufacturers struggling to keep up. Pre-pandemic, a simple bathroom refit would have taken on average about three to four weeks from the point of purchase. Now, it’s more like four months.
“Sometimes we can get all the goods in under ten days from a few UK-stocked suppliers,” says Duncan Waters, the managing director of West One Bathrooms. “But what would be four weeks shipping time from Italy, Germany or Denmark is now six to eight weeks. Some suppliers are even quoting 16-20 weeks from what was usually four weeks.”
While West One Bathrooms reports issues with sourcing WCs and flush plates due to steel shortages, as well as delays to made-to-measure glass shower screens, other retailers such as Ripples, Day True and CP Hart cite bespoke furniture and special-finish brassware as the main pinch-points. So if you’re after a rose gold basin mixer or on-trend matt black shower, these are likely to take longer.
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