World Market for Home Improvement and Gardening

Delivery

This report comes in PPT.

Examining five trends shaping home improvement and gardening

Efforts to nurture the home improvement market size increasingly focus on attracting, supporting and retaining new DIYers

In some regions, the boost in DIYer numbers faded under the pressures of the cost of living and reduction in focus on big-ticket spending. However, there are markets where active DIYer numbers remained inflated in 2022 going into 2023, visible in tools and hardware metrics. Although the proposition pipeline for brand and retailer programmes aimed at recruiting, engaging and retaining new DIYers may have originated at the height of the boom period, this effort is still escalating and spreading in 2023, geographically and into flooring and plumbing projects.

Gardening is driven by indoor plants, grow-your-own food and robotic lawn mowers, with growth from emerging markets increasingly shifting the mix

Gardening demand is driven by wellness and a reinvigorated relationship with nature, in the garden but especially inside our homes. Indoor plants’ growth accelerated, and within the grow-your-own trend garden care has taken off in developed markets, while pots and planters is a driver in all regions. Lawn space has been sacrificed and the lawn mower share of garden spend declines, although robotic lawn mowers is the exception in some regions. Forecast shifts versus the last data edition point to a growing emphasis on Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Macroeconomic movements linked to the cost-of-living crisis are suppressing demand, for 2023 but also in degrees of caution looking ahead to 2027

Inflation causes ongoing issues, causing a dislocation preventing some brands from passing cost forward into the market. This links with a rise in (premium) private label with retailers actively seeking to be less dependent on brands in a time of extreme pressure in negotiations. The cost of energy is still making itself felt in purchase choices (especially in Europe), whilst disruptions in supply brought topics like local supply and near-shoring back to being top of mind. Companies risk assess their exposure to China/Taiwan, pulling down forward forecasts.

Retail strategy overhauls the role of the store with experiments in formats, locations and footprints, plus how e-commerce gets scaled and monetised

Store strategy enters a post-COVID phase where planners accept some of the building blocks for store theory no longer work and go back to the drawing board to find optimised stores that serve the latest propensities to travel and spend. Experiments include formats, locations, footprints, assortments and price points. Other tests paid off and are scaling, such as drive-ins, external lockers and self-checkouts. Online is evolving rapidly with retail media aided by the expansion of marketplaces. A “what next” in VR/AR looks to be Gen-AI and “created reality”.

Sustainability overtly gains strategic momentum with circularity and second-hand rising whilst retail leaders boost the sector adoption of sustainable policies

Many sustainable programmes are concentrated in leading retailers, and efforts (including from EDRA/GHIN) focus on accelerating the pace of progress across the sector. Leroy Merlin with Home Index uses nudge theory on brands, buying teams, and shoppers, promoting sustainable choices – there are parts of this that are both novel and extremely clever. Second-hand is rising beyond the scale of niche sales, closely linked to marketplaces. Circularity is also gaining momentum, with more solutions turning to biodegradability rather than recycling or reuse.