Pool sales hit high-water mark during pandemic
Niagara dealers scramble to meet demand as families find alternatives to vacations
When temperatures started rising two weeks ago, so did swimming pool sales.
Now, local dealers say they’re having a hard time keeping up with demand.
“I want to say quadrupled, but I can honestly say probably six-fold my inquiries have increased,” said Nicole L’heureux, marketing director for MP Paradise Pool Sales.
Said Jay Pritchard, a partner at Boldt Pools and Spas in St. Catharines, “I’ve done this for about 25 years, and I’ve never seen two weeks like the past two weeks we’ve seen this year.”
With the Canada-u.s. border closed and most tourist attractions in Ontario off limits during the COVID-19 pandemic, families’ vacation options are limited.
It’s doubtful whether public swimming pools — still closed under the province’s state of emergency declaration — will open at all this summer.
“A lot of people are opting for staycations this year … so they’re investing their money in their own backyard instead of going to, say, a resort or Disneyland or an out-of-town cottage,” said L’heureux.
She said her company’s three largest suppliers are all based in Quebec, where COVID-19 hit especially hard and forced businesses to close.
Paradise Pools, which has five Niagara outlets, started with a full warehouse and that’s gone. Now, it’s ordering by the truckload to keep up.
Her last load sold before it even arrived, she said.
Demand, she said, remains steady,
“in fact we’re kind of trying to push our builders” to send supplies more quickly.
In mid-march when Ontario went into lockdown, pool service companies stayed open as an essential service. Better to clean and open pools properly than face an outbreak of West Nile virus due to all that standing water.
At first, said Pritchard, some customers backed away from plans to buy a pool. Then in early April, when federal wage subsidies kicked in, hot tub sales picked up.
As temperatures soared in mid-may so did pool sales, especially for above-ground ones.
The usual stock manufacturers build over the winter has largely been exhausted, he said, and businesses like his are racing to keep up with “vast” demand.
They’re also trying to catch up on orders to build in-ground pools, since restrictions on construction were only lifted by the province in late May.