The latest Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) report shows builders’ merchants’ value sales in August were down 5.6% year on year, while volume sales dropped 5.7%. Prices were up by just 0.2% over the year. With one less trading day this year, like-for-like takings were down by 1.1%.
While seven of the 12 product categories performed marginally better than last year, the two largest categories, heavy building materials and timber & joinery products, were down by 6.1% and 8.2% respectively.
Month-on-month, August’s takings were 8.1% lower than July while volume sales fell by 9.2% as prices edged up 1.2%.
