'The showroom salesperson will become much more of an interior designer in the future'

Replacement market grows     

The kitchen landscape is changing. The reason? Right: the stalled housing market. In particular, it has become almost impossible for first-time buyers to get started: buying their own home is no longer an option. It is true that many commercial and office buildings are being converted into small single apartments, but of course this will not solve the housing problem in the Netherlands. Either way, there is a big impact on ... the kitchen market.

We're in conversation with Ron de Rijk. "In the Netherlands, we were used to moving about once every seven years. That term has since been stretched. People are staying longer - often by necessity - in one place. The replacement market in the Netherlands will therefore become more important. That requires different insights from us."

Nice to exchange thoughts with Ron in this column. Because ... vision of the future we can always use. To learn from. Ron has been working in the kitchen industry for years, now at Beko, supplier of kitchen appliances. So he knows the ropes. 

"If we look at the whole chain, we see that the role of banks has changed substantially," says Ron. "It used to be no problem to give young people a mortgage and then add 20,000 or 30,000 euros of financing on top of that where you'd say, 'Buy a nice kitchen for that.' Well ... those times are over. Anyway, young people have to put in more of their own money, if they can buy anything at all, but you can imagine that this is a hefty drain on the kitchen industry. In addition, people are moving less frequently and are more likely to choose to upgrade their own homes. So I think the showroom salesperson is going to become much more of an interior designer in order to give broader advice. It is no longer enough to merely have knowledge of the kitchen itself. Helping to make longer-term, sustainable choices is where the power will lie."

The other choice will be consumers replacing kitchen appliances as they stay longer in their current homes. "Previously, that specific knowledge and expertise was less present in the electrical trade but, with the developments of online providers, we see the market share increasing there. And, if you want to replace something from built-in appliances, so you come to a story that is about proper advice regarding sizing and installation."

Ron expects that small kitchen specialty stores, which are by definition flexible, will be especially well positioned to respond. "An entrepreneur in the kitchen trade should therefore gather around him a network of professional installers and fitters in order to be able to meet this new demand, which is increasingly being made in the showroom. Large kitchen specialty stores, on the other hand, often have a little less quick clout, but even for them, the showroom salesperson will have a different conversation with consumers."

Smaller living

There is also a clear trend that what is being built is much smaller. "People are moving into less square footage. That means - especially among those younger consumers - a search for a more efficient use of square footage in the kitchen. Appliances will become more multifunctional. And, they will take up less space. But also reason it out from sustainability: if more and more people are changing eating habits to vegan, for example, this will also impact the choices you make when designing and buying the kitchen."

So there's quite a lot going on in the next few years where consumers also have a lot more knowledge compared to ten, twenty years ago. Ron concludes, "After all, everyone gets inspired on Instagram and Pinterest and creates their own Moodboard. Consumers are more visually informed and will increasingly come up with their own pictures or ideas. And that's fine. However, it is up to us - as a market - to deal with this in a smart, commercial and entrepreneurial way. The strength of a good advisor still lies in the creativity to realize the picture the consumer has already created in the most practical form."