According to a recent industry report, growth in radiant heating sales in the first quarter of this year was largely driven by sales of floor heating cables.

WarmlyYours, a radiant heating company that specializes in electric floor heating systems, released its "Q2 2018 Industry Report " earlier this week. Among other findings, the report showed that electric floor heating cable sales were responsible for a large portion of the 24.5% growth in consolidated sales for the company. Sales of the TempZone Floor Heating Cable grew 23.9% in the second quarter, which translated to year-to-date growth of 16.1%.

In addition, the Prodeso Membrane, an uncoupling membrane designed to accommodate the TempZone Floor Heating Cable product, has also increased significantly in sales in the second quarter (up 128%). When installed with the heating cable, the membrane significantly cuts down on installation time and provides long-lasting uncoupling benefits to relatively fragile floor coverings like tile. These features have helped grow the membrane from 45% of floor heating underlayment sales in the first half of 2017 to 57% in 2018.

A large part of the sales growth for both the TempZone Floor Heating Cable and the Prodeso Membrane is due to continued growth in the ecommerce channel. In fact, ecommerce now constitutes 19.4% of all WarmlyYours year-to-date sales, up from 8% last year. Most of this growth was with Amazon, which increased 349.8% in the second quarter. On Amazon, Q2 2018 sales of floor heating systems grew 427.9% and underlayment sales increased a whopping 3,003.5%. The WarmlyYours report expects to see continued e-tailer sales growth well into 2019.

Despite the rapidly accelerating growth from digital avenues, Julia Billen, owner and president of WarmlyYours, stated in the report that the company will always place highest priority on maintaining strong relationships with existing customers via direct sales.

“We’ve been in the radiant heating industry for a long time and some of our customers, from flooring installers to electricians, have been with us for nearly 20 years — in fact, they’re more like partners than customers,” said Billen. “And we will always place partners first because a website or app is never going to be able to beat the experience and knowledge of a professional.”

For more information, read the report in full, or watch a video summation of the report.