Will More Britons Buy Dishwashers?

After meals in the kitchen of their three-bedroom row house in Hitchin, about 35 miles north of London, the Quinn family washes the dishes by hand. They don’t own a dishwasher, and Louise Quinn doesn’t think they need one. “I absolutely don’t mind doing the washing up,” says Quinn, a 44-year-old customer service manager at a pet supplement maker. “We all chip in and help. It doesn’t take long, and it sets a good example to my daughter, too.”

That’s the challenge facing manufacturers of dishwashers and related detergents in Britain, including Reckitt Benckiser Group, western Europe’s dishwasher soap champ, and appliance makers BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte and Electrolux. Dishwasher sales in Britain have fallen 11 percent from a 2007 peak, researcher GfK RT estimates. “Compared to western Europe, automatic dishwashing is considered less of a necessity and more of a luxury by many U.K. consumers,” says Euromonitor analyst Lee Peart. “It’s a cultural thing. Driving sales of the appliance rather than the cleaning products is essential.”