Guillermo Leal, president of the Spanish DIY retailers’ association ADFB, president of ATB Bricolaje
Guillermo Leal is president of the Spanish DIY retailers’ association ADFB Asociación de Distribuidores de Ferretería y Bricolage and president of ATB Bricolaje, a franchise group which operates the Bricocentro stores.
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Spain - ADFB

Digitalisation, innovation, logistics

These are the three buzzwords cited by Guillermo Leal, chairman of the Spanish retailers’ association ADFB, when asked about the greatest challenges facing the home improvement sector in his country. Here we reproduce his full interview with DIY International
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Could you please give us an idea of the size of the Spanish home improvement market?
Guillermo Leal: In Spain, it's hard for us to define the size of the market. Roughly, we can speak of 90 large department stores, 250 medium-sized stores, 50 hard discount stores, 7 500 hardware stores, 1 500 builders merchants and 1 000 industrial suppliers. We should add to these figures the DIY sales by food retailers, online websites, bazaars and garden centres.

Do the Spanish love do-it-yourself? The men as well as the women?

Unfortunately, in Spain, we are not as great DIY enthusiasts as our northern European partners are. Even though it is a large market, we are the 6th European market in terms of importance. In terms of the average sales per person, we are still 18th according to Fediyma's 2017 Home Improvement Global Report.There are many different reasons: culture, climate, social habits, socio-economic level... yet it represents an opportunity for the entire DIFM (do-it-for-me) service business.
When talking about women, I believe their gradual incorporation into the industry is important, not just as buyers, but even more importantly as decision makers for most home-related matters. 

Nearly all over the world, the DIY industry laments that the younger generation is losing typical DIY skills. What about in Spain?

In this respect, the evolution is similar in our country.  The world is changing and generations are evolving, but that doesn't mean it is all negative. What we must do is adapt to the new type of consumer.
This new consumer is different: the new consumer enjoys travelling, in most cases, prefers sharing to buying, is a digital being... but the new consumer also enjoys the good life, that's for sure!
This new consumer opens our eyes to a whole new range of opportunities and possibilities, and also of changes which we, the retailers, must be ready to make. Who's going to do their home improvements and maintenance?

What is the most challenging task the Spanish home improvement industry has to tackle today - and in the future?

Just a few weeks ago we were talking about this matter and finding some common ground. We, the different types of distributors operating in the Spanish market, coincide in the fact that the main challenges we are facing are digitalisation, innovation and logistics. These three concepts, all interlinked as a result of the consumer's evolution, will determine whether our businesses move forwards or backwards.
Digitalisation is perhaps the biggest…
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