News in the Channel - October 2022

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the years, usually corresponding with a 61% decline in searches. In 2020, this dip is still present, but its duration is much smaller, accounting for only a few days in contrast to the usual week and a half. This points to an increase of people searching for laptops while on holiday. Working from home becomes the norm Another driving force of transformation has been the need to work from home. This is an aspect on which the data is quite clear. With a shift in the percentage of people meeting on Zoom and MS Teams, a similar shift happened in the need for peripherals and auxiliary equipment. On the graphs below, the orange line indicates the day on which the UK’s first lockdown began, and the purple jitters are the searches for peripherals. Just look at the categories with a spike right before that orange line: webcams, for example, showed an 800% increase in interest month-on-month seemingly overnight, where headphones and headsets made a similar movement with a 400% spike. After this brief stint, both categories dropped off during the pandemic halt and started growing again gradually as video conferencing became more commonplace. It seems like a few forward-thinking people grabbed the opportunity initially and set themselves up with WFH kits, with the rest of the world catching up over the coming months as the trend to meet others on screen grew. Microphone searches also grew during this latter time, months after the other products had their initial boom. As people started to return to the office, all these categories tapered off, but still kept well above double their level of searches from before the pandemic. The same cannot be said for computer monitors and routers. After the initial halt of the first lockdown, these two categories have shown a sustained level of interest to this day. With working from home becoming a regular part of many people’s working week now, there is a desire to upgrade their equipment, such as matching or bettering the number of monitors they have in the office. Similarly, the router marker also saw a surge in searches, indicating that we are creating better networked homes, since the bedroom now doubles as a boardroom. Pressure on suppliers With a greater pull from consumers, more push needs to come from suppliers. With the increase in immediate demand for laptops, a noticeable effect took place on the supply side. One such change is the rise in stockouts for products in the channel, corresponding to large spikes in sales. There were 38% more products out

Number of products out of stock compared to sales as recorded by Stock in the Channel before and during the COVID-19 pandemic Laptops (Dec 2019 - Jan 2021) Sales Stockouts 80

Trend of searches on Stock in the Channel before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (Jun 2019 – Feb 2022) Source: Stock in the Channel

Webcams

Source: Stock in the Channel (2022)

of stock at the end of March 2020 than two months prior, with a gradual increase taking place in those two months. This corresponds to a spike in sales being recorded. Problems seemed to ease by mid- July 2020 and similarly at the end of 2020. From March 2020 onward, between the lockdown and Christmas booms, a steady increase in stockouts can also be seen. Stockouts grew at an average of 3.7% between July and October 2020. The pressure seemed not to ease as laptops were still in high demand, with some workers still opting to work from home and new workers entering the market regularly. Average laptop prices have also changed. In 2020, the deviation stays stable, clustered on the same level as in the past, but the distribution skews to the right stronger than it has in the past. This points towards more products having volatile prices during this year, more so than previously. This is to be expected in a period of such uncertainty. The market managed the lockdown pull quite well, but certain products still went a bit haywire, creating the greater variance in their listings over time. This seemed to sort itself out in 2021 as the market had time to re-adjust. But the level of stockouts showed too sharp a gradient to be comfortable with, with ripple effects from lockdown sales spikes being felt into 2021.

Headphones/Headsets

Microphones

Wired/Wireless Routers

Changes in notebook price standard deviation Laptops (First quarters 2017 – 2021)

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Computer Monitors

Notebook

Notebook Laptop type

Notebook

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