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The blue line indicates ‘double glazing’, and has remained pretty much steady all the way through the year. There isn’t the usual rollercoaster shape on the graph which regularly showed the big rise in summer and huge dip in winter. This is the same for ‘conservatories’ indicated by the red line, and ‘home improvements’ indicated by the yellow line.
Now we are at the end of the year it is easier to form a more accurate picture as to how the public has responded to the financial hardship. What stands out to me as a major positive is how there was no mass panic or dip in search number. Granted the volume is down on previous years, but the public could have really panicked and just stopped searching for home improvements altogether, but they didn’t. Another big positive is, as the quieter months arrived i.e. September onwards, there was no big dip in the volume of searches. From beginning to end the public’s searching behavior has been steady. This bodes well for the industry in the first three months of 2010. Providing there is no drastic change throughout December, if the steady momentum of the public can be carried into the beginning of next year, and not drop off like it usually does, the double glazing industry could look forward to a much more positive start to 2010 than 2009.