Market conditions are getting tougher

While a small amount of growth (0.9 per cent) was on record for the DIY market in 2004, total sales went down by 1.9 per cent to € 4.06 bn in 2005, according to GfK Benelux. Though the growth in 2004 was only thanks to the fact that the year numbered 53 weeks. If this extra week is subtracted and the result compared with the 52 weeks of 2005, last year would have shown a small increase of 0.1 per cent.
DIY stores in the red
Seen against a background of the relativity of these figures, the striking thing is that the DIY retailers did actually forfeit any sales. For years they had been the driving force of the DIY sector in the Netherlands, accounting for 70 per cent of total turnover.
The highest increase experienced by the DIY retailers was 4.4 per cent in period 10 (v. table), but in periods 6 and 13 they more than paid for this with decreases of 6.8 and 16.3 per cent. Altogether the DIY stores saw their sales decline by 2.9 per cent to € 2.855 bn, a decrease that would have been 1.8 per cent without the extra week in 2004.
The small-format stores were also affected, with sales down by 1.6 per cent. The year started off poorly, and although there was an increase of between 4 and 6 per cent by the end of the summer, the final result for 2005 was still somewhat poorer than for the previous year.
Specialist shops in the black
The recovery of the specialist shops is a striking feature of this year. Hardware dealers managed to stabilise their sales at € 394 mio (+0.2 per cent). Losses of –4.3 per cent and –7.1 per cent were on record at the beginning of the year. Things started to improve in May, and increases of 4 – 6 per cent were notched up.
The paint and wallpaper shops saw growth of 2.5 per cent in 2005. The number of outlets went down, but they achieved impressive results by comparison with the other retail channels, even though things were not all positive throughout the entire year. At year's end there was a loss of as much as 10.1 per cent, but these specialist retailers still achieved the best result in the DIY sector overall.
DIY landscape
The number of DIY stores rose by 15 in 2005, compared with just eleven more outlets in 2004. Apparently there is still room for new stores, even in a time of market saturation. The DIY league table was headed by Gamma with 152 stores (an increase of 5), followed by Praxis (132) and Karwei (101). Where the small-format stores were concerned, Hubo, Doeland and Fixet Klusmark dominated the rankings. Hubo had 266 stores…