The DIY stores call the tune

Where home enhancement is concerned, DIY is still the biggest item of expenditure for French households. And by a large margin: at d 15.9 bn (excluding garden sales in DIY stores) it amounts to practically twice as much as furniture (d 8.24 bn according to Cetelem), which takes second place within the category of household fittings and fixtures. Garden products occupy sixth place with sales of d 6.1 bn.
Development of  the French DIY market in €  bn(download pdf-file)
The DIY stores improve their position
The do-it-yourself sector managed not only to defend its position, but to strengthen it as well in 2003. The market survey published by Unibal, the French manufacturers’ association, is based on the assumption that the entire DIY market, including the DIY stores’ garden segment, grew by 3.85 per cent to £ 17.55 bn. Which is confirmation enough of the significance of the DIY formats. Their growth of 5.4 per cent, which is above average for the sector, means that they were able to expand their market share still further (+1.55 per cent). Their combined sales of d 11.46 bn resulted in a market share of 65.3 per cent, which means they are well ahead of the building materials sector, which remained stagnant at 21.5 per cent.
The builders’ merchants’ consumer business increased by 3.5 per cent to d 3.77 bn, which is very close to the growth achieved by the market overall. “The reduction of value-added tax to 5.5 per cent has allowed the builders’ merchants to gain market share over recent years, but this advantage seems to be wearing off now, so that their current growth is almost the same as that achieved by the market as a whole,” comments Rémy Dassant, who is in charge of statistics at Unibal. “What is more, the builders’ merchants are really feeling the competition from the depot-type stores, which have made strong progress, and from the fitting and installation services offered by the DIY stores.” End-consumers shopping in builders’ merchant outlets are primarily interested in building ma-terials, which account for 53.2 per cent of their retail sales. The second sector is wood and derived products (15.2 per cent), followed by plumbing (10.6 per cent).
Market share by sales channel 2003(download pdf-file)
% share of DIY store sales by product category 2003(download pdf-file)
Hypermarkets continue on downward trend
Last year was not so rosy for the other suppliers of DIY products. Supermarkets and hypermarkets are being forced to relinquish market share year after…