A recent industry report found that first quarter sales of radiant heating products, particularly electric floor heating systems, were driven by ecommerce channels like Amazon.
WarmlyYours Radiant Heating, a manufacturer specializing in electric floor heating systems, released their “First Quarter 2018 Industry Report” earlier this week. One of the primary findings of the report was that the largest driver for Q1 sales volume growth was an increase in sales of radiant heating products via ecommerce channels. Despite sustained and continued growth for several concurrent quarters, ecommerce sales grew an impressive 37.3% in Q1 2018 to constitute 11.4% of all WarmlyYours sales (up from 3.2% in Q1 2017).
Amazon was a standout performing channel with nearly 250% growth in sales year-over-year. The radiant heating product categories with the fastest rates of growth in Amazon sales were floor heating underlayments (up 447.5%), towel warmers (up 407.7%), and floor heating elements (up 107.5%). On Amazon, and in general WarmlyYours sales, the fastest growing product combo was yet again the Prodeso uncoupling membrane paired with TempZone electric floor heating cable, which grew 42% and 17.1% respectively. This quarter also marked the first time that the Prodeso membrane was the highest selling floor heating underlayment, making up 56% of sales in this product category.
Despite the ecommerce giant posting huge first quarter gains, most of Amazon’s revenue came from their AWS cloud service and ad-spend by vendors so growth in radiant heating sales resists the easy explanation of an expanded marketplace and instead suggests the possibility of emerging changes in consumer behaviors.
Julia Billen, owner and president of WarmlyYours said that there will always be market share for both third party ecommerce and direct sales of radiant heating products because of value-add services.
“For many customers, using Amazon is a matter of convenience,” said Billen. “But there will always be value-add services, like custom installation plans for electric floor heating, that Amazon just isn’t equipped to provide.”