New home appliances in time for Christmas?
Don’t count on it amid unprecedented scarcity
“This entire industry is the busiest its ever been in the 30 years I’ve been doing this. Everybody’s stuck at home, so they figure they might as well remodel.” Jim Deen
Co-owner of Kitchen Kraft, a 25-year-old remodeling firm in German Village
Ken Rieman has been in the appliance business for 35 years and has never seen a year like this: A flood of demand and a trickle of appliances.
“There’s a huge appliance shortage right now,” said Rieman, the chief executive officer of Custom Distributors, the Cincinnati-based appliance distributor which also operates centers in Worthington, Dayton and Tampa, Florida.
“It started happening shortly after the shutdowns for COVID and has been exacerbated because demand for appliances has skyrocketed,” said Rieman, whose business caters to home builders, remodelers and designers. “We carry more than 74 brands, and not a single one is unaffected.”
Appliances that used to take two or three weeks to arrive now might take two or three months, dealers and remodelers say.
“We’ve had to change what we’re doing. We’re ordering appliances as soon as we sell a job, immediately,” said Jim Deen, co-owner of Kitchen Kraft, the 25-year-old remodeling firm in German Village.
“We used to wait to order them a month or so before the project starts. No one wants all these large, bulky, expensive appliances laying around. Now we’re ordering them the second we sign the job because they can take a couple of months, easily, to arrive.”
Experts blame two factors for the shortage: a decline in manufacturing output that started in the spring and has yet to catch up, and a surge in remodeling and homebuilding this year.
Whitney Welch, a spokeswoman for GE Appliances, said the company is fully operational after a brief shutdown in the spring. But, she said, the company has seen record demand on certain products since COVID-19 began, as people began spending more time at home and undertook home improvements.
Freezer sales, for example, outpaced supply beginning in March as consumers stockpiled goods, and demand remains at an unprecedented level, Welch said.
“As we work to meet demand, consumers may find that certain products are taking longer to be delivered,” Welch said.
Although appliance manufacturers were closed only briefly in the spring, many of their suppliers were shut down for far longer. Rieman said many manufacturers, for example, rely on a Mexican firm for wire harnesses but those plants were closed for weeks, backing up the supply chain.
Central Ohio home-improvement companies and appliance shops are advising customers to order early and be patient.
“We’re trying to order way in advance, anywhere from six to 10 weeks, in some cases longer depending on the model,” said Kent Homoelle, vice president of JAE Company, the 60-year-old central Ohio kitchen and bath remodeling firm.
“This started in June and July and has reached a pinnacle in October, as demand continues to increase.”
Homoelle and others said shortages can be found across brands and products but are especially acute in unusual models or finishes, such as slate.
“I was told by one of my vendors that if you stick to American-made and nothing unusual, you can get what you need,” said Angela Bonfante, owner of Angela Bonfante Kitchen & Designs in Upper Arlington.
“I just had someone order a white finish with a gold handle and was told it would take six to eight weeks. Another client ordered Sub-zero, Wolf and Bosch and they were told eight to 12 weeks.”
Rieman said some manufacturers have stopped producing niche products altogether during the pandemic.
“Several brands have cut down the amount of skus (stock keeping units) they produce,” he said. “Thermador and Bosch, they had 108 dishwasher skus in the spring. They cut that down to 54 so they could concentrate on higher-demand items.”
Some customers who ordered unusual products have had to reorder different items, he said.
Custom Distributors’ Worthington showroom is missing many floor models, which the company sold to custom
ers who couldn’t get their appliances in time.
“We’re trying to serve customers the best we can,” general manager Ginger Birkhimer said. “I’ve been in this business 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this. This is completely unprecedented.”
In October, Consumer Reports found that among major appliance retailers such as Best Buy, Home Depot and Sears, almost a third of 24-inch dishwashers were out of stock, compared with about a fifth at the beginning of the year, according to Gap Intelligence, a market-research company. Among refrigerators, 37% of all types were unavailable on retailers’ websites last month, which was about double the 19% seen in January.
Home improvement, which has been on a roll since the spring, is fueling much of the demand.
“This entire industry is the busiest its ever been in the 30 years I’ve been doing this,” said Deen, with Kitchen Kraft. “Everybody’s stuck at home, so they figure they might as well remodel. … We normally start projects within three or four months. Now it’s five or six months.”
Also driving appliance demand is new home and apartment construction. All those new residences require new appliances.
M/I Homes has been advising customers who want something unusual to get it themselves, said David Balcerzak, vice president of sales and marketing for M/I’S Columbus Division.
“Our level-one and level-two appliances, stainless steel General Electric, we can get,” he said. “But things like the black stainless and matte black, those are almost impossible to get.”
For consumers, the waits can be a challenge.
Just a few weeks after closing on a new home in East Atlanta, Amy Miller and her husband decided to purchase a new washer and dryer.
They ordered a top-load washing machine and a dryer from Home Depot in mid-september, expecting the appliances to be delivered about a week after their scheduled move-in. But upon completing the order, they learned the appliances would take almost a month.
“I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ “Miller said. “I was taken aback. I was like, ‘How do they expect us to wash our clothes?’ ”
Miller said she considered other options, but every option had a drawback — other stores had similar wait times, and buying in-store meant accepting mismatched models or a smaller selection of brands.
In the end, she washed every item of clothing for her family of four before moving. Her backup plan to use the neighborhood coin laundry during offpeak hours never had to be implemented. They received their new appliances in late October, she said.
Information from Cox Newspapers was used in this report.