DIY home improvement products allow homeowners to do significant projects by themselves with the help of DIY specialists like Home Porch & Patio Kits Inc. COVID-19 in 2020 created increased interest in DIY home improvement. Additionally, the growing population of working women and their participation in the decision-making process for home improvements have boosted product sales. The use of DIY products lowers long-term costs compared to work outsourced to expensive labor. It is no wonder the entire DIY market in all its offerings continues to grow.

2020 has been no ordinary year, and COVID forced a change in consumer behaviors. Reflected in Home Porch & Patio Kits’ own customer demographics is the tendency for Millennial DIY’ers to use on-line services for research while making final purchases locally. However, generally speaking, an overwhelming number of DIY’ers explore products in-store while making the final purchase through on-line sources. With a large number of local businesses restricted in their ability to operate due to COVID, both on-line research and on-line purchases in all things “DIY” skyrocketed in 2020.

Since COVID changed the way people allocated resources in 2020, it made for a challenging season in all areas of our market segments. Increased demand for DIY projects resulted in shortages in raw materials such as lumber, aluminum, and solid bead EPS. Tertiary suppliers to our manufacturers (small parts manufacturing, extruders, hardware, screening) found it difficult to keep up with increased demand while working under COVID restrictions, which prevented adding to their workforce and even using the full workforce available to them. This, of course, was also the case with our own primary manufacturing partners. Without getting into all the details, you can easily understand how a typical 3 week delivery in years past turned into a 6-7 week delivery time in 2020. Patience was the word of the ‘year’ in 2020.

We worked hard in 2020, ensuring the best customer experience possible. Our customers displayed a willingness to spend the money on that long sought after patio cover or sunroom if that price also reflected high quality. This is very much in line with Home Porch & Patio Kits corporate ethos… “Don’t shop impulsively. Know what you are buying, how to build it, and enter into a partnership with us to make the project happen.” 

Over the years, we have not only recognized the value of our blog(s) for our business and customers, but we have also enjoyed creating the content. And yet, we have been [understandably] distracted for quite some time!

Hopefully, this post is a renewal of our corporate commitments to creativity and information at the end of what has been a very challenging season!

In 2021 we will recommit to a more consistent set of contributions to all our social media platforms. Naturally, if there are things you would like to see us talk about, we welcome all suggestions!

We will be working on several aspects of our WEB site, from content, to installation guidelines to reformatting pages for a clearer & concise presentation.

We will be reviewing areas in which we can save and invest in existing product lines and new ones by increasing our commitment to sales & product training. It will mean the odd shut down of our offices for a day or two at a time, but it will serve our customers well into the future.

All in all, 2020 was a hard season, with many challenges on both sides of the sales & customer support process. But, it was a record season as well. We look forward to 2021. We look forward to COVID fading into the background as the year progresses. We look forward to the new challenges that a new year always brings. Above all, we look forward to entering into a partnership with hundreds of new people as we work together to make your projects happen!