A retail creation

The DIY market is much more diverse than a simple definition of core DIY products, and the market, as it exists at the moment, reflects the product offer of the major DIY superstores rather than that of a small edge-of-high-street hardware shop.

For that reason we feel that it is necessary to develop our own market size definition and we describe that definition and the calculation we use to estimate our market size later.

We cover the top five economies in detail in the individual country chapters and in this section we add the key data for another 14 European economies.

  • We give the Mintel market size estimate

  • We provide annual sales data and forecasts for the specialists sector

  • And for each country we provide data on participation in the online channel

  • In the five major country sections, our consumer research asked shoppers which stores they had bought from and about the tasks they’d carried out and plan to carry out.

Consumer questions

For our UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain reports, we surveyed representative samples of consumers. This year our survey asked consumers in each of these five markets:

  • We asked what DIY jobs they had done and what they expected to do this year

  • We asked where they shop, in-store or online, and what the criteria were for choosing a store (not UK).

For the UK we also asked:

  • What their most used DIY store was

  • How satisfied they were with various aspects of the stores

  • What DIY products they bought

  • What DIY jobs they plan to do over the next 12 months and whether they would do it themselves or get someone else to do it

  • We asked about their attitudes to doing DIY.

Report scope and technical notes

This report series covers the five leading economies of Europe. The data in its entirety is contained in the single copy five-country report. Single country reports are also available for the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

The single copy five country report also includes an Executive Summary - Market section which brings together data for the wider European market.

In total these countries account for around 95% of all European retail sales, excluding Russia. The remaining countries are either too small (eg Luxembourg) or are not sufficiently well developed to warrant detailed coverage (eg Romania and Bulgaria).

This data in its entirety is contained in the single copy 19-country report, which gives a full overview of DIY retailing in Europe. Single country reports, including consumer research analysis, are also available for the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Defining DIY

The focus of the reports is the DIY superstores. While there may be good reason to suppose that in the longer term their dominance may be eroded to some extent, at the moment they are the leading players in the sector and to a considerable extent, they define the sector.

In many markets, core DIY – paint, wallpaper, screws, tools etc. – is now a small part of the DIY sector proposition. Many of the large European DIY retailers are broad-range home-improvement stores with substantial gardening ranges. On the whole it is easier to understand what a DIY store is than to define it. Many, such as Homebase in the UK, are moving towards being broad-based home improvement stores with substantial ranges of homewares and furniture, but we still classify them as DIY stores.

Definitions – Mintel’s market size

Most DIY retailers will sell some furniture – such as kitchens, bathrooms and flatpack – gardening goods, and some electric household appliances. But most do not compete on the full span of furniture or appliances.

Our Mintel DIY market size is compiled from spending on various relevant categories. We take categories from the published consumer spending data or in some cases a fixed percentage to allow for categories that the DIY retailers only compete in part of – for instance, they stock smooth floorcoverings and few sell carpets.

Our market size is based on:

  • 100% of the categories, Tools and equipment for home and gardens, plants and flowers.

  • 100% of the category Materials for maintenance and repair of the home, though if that is not available we take 50% of the category, Materials and services for maintenance and repair of the home.

  • 22% of the category Furniture and furnishings, carpets and other floor coverings, reflecting that DIY retailers compete on smooth floor coverings (such as tiles) and flatpack furniture but not typically other sub-categories such as carpets, beds or sofas.

  • 15% of the category, Other recreational items and equipment, gardens and pets – reflecting DIY retailers’ presence in garden and pets categories.

  • 15% of the category Household appliances, as an estimate of the small electricals sector which DIY retailers do compete in.

Note that where we use a percentage of a category, the same percentages are applied from year to year – so any shorter-term shifts in the category balance may not be reflected in the data.

We also use the same proportion across all countries and while that may not be wholly appropriate, our method gives a figure that is comparable across all countries.

In consumer spending terms, major relevant categories to DIY retailing are outlined below.

Figure 1: Categories included in Mintel’s market estimate, 2015
COICOP code Category Definition/notes
4.3 Materials and services for maintenance and repair of the home Goods and services – see breakdown below.
Includes:
04.3.1 Materials for maintenance and repair of the home Products and materials for minor maintenance and repair, such as paints and varnishes, renderings, wallpapers, fabric wall coverings, window panes, plaster, cement, putty, wallpaper pastes, etc.; includes small plumbing items (pipes, taps, joints, etc.), surfacing materials (floorboards, ceramic tiles, etc.) and brushes and scrapers for paint, varnish and wallpaper.
Excludes materials and fixtures used for major maintenance and repair (intermediate consumption) or for extension and conversion of the dwelling (capital formation).
04.3.2 Services for maintenance and repair of the home Services include plumbers, electricians, carpenters, glaziers, painters, etc.
5.5 Tools and equipment for home and garden Motorised and hand tools – see breakdown below.
Includes:
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Source: National statistics office/Mintel

Retail sector

For our retail sector sales and forecast we use the following category under the SIC 2007 categorisation.

47520 - Retail sale of hardware, paints and glass in specialised stores

Financial definitions

Financial definitions used are:

  • All specialists sector sales figures are quoted excluding VAT, unless specifically stated otherwise.

  • Consumer spending data is quoted including VAT, unless specifically stated otherwise.

  • Sales: Turnover as reported by the company, excluding VAT.

  • Operating profits: pre-tax profits plus interest, less non-trading income such as the sale of fixed assets and any exceptional items, including provisions.

  • Pre-tax profits: the net trading profit after deducting all operating costs including depreciation and finance charges, but before deduction of tax, dividends and other appropriations.

  • Operating margin: operating profits as a percentage of sales.

Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.

Note that there can be a number of reasons why tables do not sum exactly:

  • Rounding errors

  • Currency conversions if original data for different subsidiaries was in different currencies (companies often provide information in local currencies).

  • VAT (sales tax) – if original data was provided gross (including sales tax), we have extracted VAT at the relevant rates for countries concerned and at the estimated appropriate rates depending on product categories sold.

Information on all subsidiaries is not always available. As a result in some cases we have an entry for the parent company, and subsidiary information on only one part of the business.

  • Sales area, where quoted, is as published by the company. We cannot be sure that the companies are consistent about how much external area, covered or otherwise, is included.

  • Sales per sq m is the sales generated during the year divided by the average area traded from during that year.

  • Sales per store is calculated using the average number of trading outlets during the year.

VAT

  • In general, all company sales data and retail sales/specialists’sales are quoted excluding VAT, unless stated otherwise.

  • Consumer spending data is quoted including VAT unless specifically stated otherwise.

  • VAT-exclusive consumer spending data is used to calculate market shares.

European VAT rates vary, and the recent economic downturn and subsequent public debts have led to a number of VAT increases across the continent. Almost all countries charge a lower rate for some goods, but DIY goods are generally standard-rate products.

Figure 2: European VAT rates. 2010-2014
01-Jan-10 31-Dec-10 01-Jan-11 31-Dec-11 01-Jan-12 01-Jan-13 01-Jan-14
% % % % % % %
Austria 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
Belgium 21 21 21 21 21 21 21
Czech Republic 20 20 20 20 20 21 21
Denmark 25 25 25 25 25 25 25
Finland 23 23 23 23 23 24 24
France 19.6 19.6 19.6 19.6 19.6 19.6 20
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(a) 2011 increase implemented on 4 January

Abbreviations

ACORN A Classification of Residential Neighbourhoods
B2B Business-to-Business
Big-ticket categories High-cost products such as furniture, carpets, kitchens, bathrooms, appliances.
CAGR Compound Annual Growth Rate
COICOP Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose
CPI Consumer Prices Index
DIY Do It Yourself
e Mintel Estimate
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Country codes

We sometimes use standard codes to abbreviate country names, as set out below.

Country Code
Austria at
Belgium be
Bulgaria bg
Czech Republic cz
Denmark dk
Estonia ee
Finland fi
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