"I can’t run any faster": Demand is overflowing at Hamilton pool shops

Bob Simpson took a glance at the health tracker on his wrist Monday and re-read the number to make sure it wasn't on the fritz.

If his eyes weren't fooling him, he'd taken 22,800 steps in less than a dozen hours - or 17.37 kilometres, if anyone's counting.

He didn't run a half-marathon. He didn't go for a meandering jog. He was pacing, back and forth and back again, all throughout his aquatic pool shop on the Mountain while tending to the most in-demand, hectic pool season he's seen in over 50 years of business.

I can't run any faster," says Simpson, longtime owner of The Pool Shoppe on Rymal Road East, adding for good measure that he clocked in 18,000 steps Sunday - more than double his usual.

I've never seen a situation like this. It's gone from one extreme to the other. If people want a pool right now, they're beat."

The pool industry in Hamilton is undergoing a seismic shift whereby demand has overwhelmed supply chains to near capacity. Customers are coming in droves, shops are backed-up weeks with pool requests, and manufacturers are stretched to the limit.

The reason being?

Heat plays a factor, sure. But it's been stay-at-home orders and city pools and splash pads being shuttered amid COVID-19 that's more pointedly shot demand through the roof and crippled the market.

We've had years where it was really active, but you could get repeat product. There's no repeat product. I can't go back to where I buy them from - they're sold out, over sold," Simpson says. There's a shortage of above ground pools in Ontario and Quebec."

Everybody is home, no one's travelling," says Dana Simpson, Bob's daughter and the store's general manager. That's what everybody's telling us: Now that we're home for the summer, we may as well have something for the family to do.'"

The Pool Shoppe sold out its aboveground pool and hot tub stock in weeks. In past years, supply could be replenished within two or three weeks; it's now taking at least a month and a half. The next scheduled delivery for aboveground pools is August.

Pioneer Family Pools, which sits just down the road from Simpson's shop, is already 50 per cent ahead in pool sales and 70 per cent ahead in spa sales relative to last year.

And it's just starting because we had that cold spell and people held off," says Harry Martyniuk, the company's owner.

Meanwhile, the city's other main pool supplier, Buds Spas and Pools, is so busy that The Spectator waited nearly an hour on hold before getting through to a customer service representative. Walmart pools are sold out both in store and online.

It's kind of reflective of 9/11. As soon as someone says, I'm sorry, you can't travel,' or people don't feel comfortable travelling, everybody cocoons and goes to their house," Martyniuk says. And where do they hang out? The backyard."

Pioneer is expecting in-ground pool requests to trump that of last year's figures, and aboveground pools - the hottest item on the market - are burning steam quick. Martyniuk says the situation is leaving people with an ultimatum: act now, or risk going pool-less for 2020.

We still have some aboveground in stock, but if somebody's going to make the decision and take the plunge, they should do it, like, now - because it's going that fast."

Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com