Change is in the air

There is nothing particularly disquieting on the face of it. In 2004 the French DIY market, including the garden sector, realised sales of € 18.35 bn (€ 16.56 excluding garden), according to Unibal. This signifies a rise of 4.55 per cent in nominal and 3.75 in real terms compared with 2003.
Market share by sales channel 2004(.pdf download)
There are many reasons for the slowdown in growth. Weather conditions are not always favourable, and new DIY store openings are no longer as numerous as they used to be (2004: +2.7 per cent). What is more, the French DIY market has reached saturation point with its total of 3 054 outlets, though retail space is continuing to grow: it came to 6.706 mio m² at the end of 2004 (+6.3 per cent). The average store size has expanded over 15 years from 1 618 m² to 2 196 m² (2004: +3.6 per cent). Sales per m2 were unable to keep pace, rising by only 0.5 per cent to € 2 508.
Brico Dépôt as driving force
The operative capability of the DIY superstores is being sustained by the depot concept, with Brico Dépôt in the lead.
The DIY stores achieved a sales volume of € 12.15 bn (+6 per cent in nominal and +5 per cent in real terms) in 2004. Which indicates a rise in their market share of 1.54 per cent to 66.2 per cent. The garden sector is the largest product category with 14.7 per cent of sales, far ahead of bathrooms and plumbing (13.2 per cent), decoration (12.9 per cent) and timber/derived timber products (12.7 per cent).
End-consumer sales recorded by builders' merchants come to € 4 bn, having increased on the same scale as the sales volume of the DIY stores. Their market share amounts to 21.8 per cent.
“The 5.5 per cent VAT rate is continuing to create market share for the builders' merchant sector, as are the efforts of some sales channels to encourage experienced DIYers to undertake major projects,” explains Rémy Dassant, in charge of market analysis at Unibal. And, in fact, end-consumers in the builders' merchant sector are mainly interested in the building materials category (€ 2.127 bn, or 53 per cent of the retail sales), far ahead of wood and derived products (€ 576 mio or 14.4 per cent).
Development of the French DIY market in € bn(.pdf download)
In contrast to these two specialists, the hypermarkets are not managing to keep up their rates of growth. Their sales of DIY products (€ 1.347 bn) have declined by 4.7 per cent so that their market share is now 7.3 per cent. “The majority of supermarkets concentrate on self-service…