Great potential in Spain

This is the conclusion reached in a study by Unibal, the French association of DIY manufacturers with headquarters in Paris. Development is progressing tentatively, despite the fact that consumers have made use of the time to acquire a taste for the “do-it-yourself culture” and 85 per cent of the Spanish population are nowadays home-owners, which makes them potential customers. Nevertheless, trade insiders continue to affirm that the DIY market will progress and follow the example of other European markets.
Traditional hardware dealers still occupy a strong position in the Spanish DIY retail trade with a 40 per cent share of sales. According to Ancofe, the Spanish association of hardware dealers, there are 9 700 hardware outlets in Spain. They have an advantage over DIY superstores and supermarkets in that they function on neighbourhood locations and offer a customer advisory service. A tendency towards concentration in the traditional sector can be discerned in the shape of buying groups or cooperatives, which lend weight and buying power in the face of the competition.
There have been DIY stores in Spain since 1988, but they have not so far succeeded in taking any market share away from the traditional retail trade. They have a market share of seven per cent; overall market volume was estimated at 3.049 bn euro in 1999.
Supply and demand
The Unibal survey names tools, self-assembly furniture, paint and hardware as the product categories with a tendency towards growth. The Spanish product offer is extremely broad and diversified. The large-format stores obtain 90 per cent of their goods from Spanish manufacturers or foreign suppliers with sales agencies in Spain, which makes possible savings on logisitics.
Today nearly half of the Spanish population, almost exclusively men, turn to do-it-yourself. The product categories most in demand are paint, electrical, timber and plumbing.
Prospects
Unibal makes a positive assessment of the further development of the Spanish DIY market. Here the recession is providing the impetus, since in times of crisis people tend to carry out minor jobs themselves rather than employ someone else to do the work as usual. The revival of the building sector is also having a direct effect on the DIY market. Added to this is the number of home-owners, which is growing in significance when compared with the rest of the EU.
The trends where DIY is concerned are the same in all the countries of Europe: back inside one’s own four walls, more…