As Home Improvement spend growth slows in the UK, which home improvement brands have the strongest foundation? In today’s Insight Flash, we examine consumer DIY trends for Kingfisher’s B&Q and Screwfix as well as The Range and Homebase using our new UK Cohort dashboards to see spend trends versus the industry and subindustry, where cross-shop is strongest, and what an analysis of B&Q ticket buckets implies about the shopping basket.
The UK Home Improvement Industry saw relatively flat spend growth trends in DIY consumer spend throughout 2019 up to the first quarter of 2020. Growth accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic as shoppers looked for at-home projects and felt hesitant to let contractors into their homes, with new UK lockdowns in winter 2021 leading to subindustry growth as high as 44%. Although among the brands tracked here The Range saw the largest pandemic spend increases, y/y trends have become increasingly negative since 2Q2021. Although the entire tracked group is showing negative y/y trends on tough compares, Screwfix declines have been the least negative of the group, despite the toughest compares in 4Q2021.
Spend Growth Versus Industry and Subindustry
Among tracked brands, B&Q has the largest spend, but is susceptible to its customers cross-shopping competitors. Although the store seems to have everything to satisfy shopper needs, the largest cross-shop in recent months has been at sister company Screwfix, ranging from 12-15% of B&Q customers also shopping there each month throughout 2021. Cross-shopping of The Range has fallen in a similar though slightly lower . . . well . . . range, while cross-shopping of Homebase has been much lower at 4.5%-6.5%.
Cross-Shop
One interesting question for these Home Improvement retailers is what type of items are being purchased. For B&Q, this year has seen high spend growth in transactions above £300. This could mean more purchases of high-ticket items like appliances, or larger home improvement projects overall.
Ticket Buckets
