Is business in the trades falling off in Christchurch?

A question that many trade companies want to know is: If trade business demand is tailing off in the re-build, and if so where. Recent reports have shown that there has been a tailing off in residential business consents. See CCC consents report www.ccc.govt.nz/the-council/newsline/show/

Because at Velocity Websites we use Google data for search engine optimisation purposes, we decided to gather the data of the key building industries and see if there has been a drop-off in the searches made by the public for trade services from 2014 to 2016.  To our relief we see, that according to Google Search data, searches for trade related queries is on the increase. And while there was variability in the months that searches were higher in some trades, we couldn’t find an industry that was bucking this trend.

So what is true here?  

We think a couple of things could be at play in this.

1. Larger consents projects may have peaked, but smaller jobs could be stable due to people holding off of small projects until bigger ones are resolved
2. People are searching more online and this trend is negating the declines seen in demand for building and construction services. See Google Consumer Barometer shows Kiwi habits in the evolving online and smartphone market

So if you have been getting less business,

• You may have more competitors
• You just may be losing business to your competitors
• You are not targeting your marketing towards where consumers are searching for services like yours!

If you would like to discuss the data for your particular industry then contact us and we will give you a free report.

If you would like to discuss the data for your particular industry then contact us and we will give you a free report.