Quality of life in one's own home

Heidi Biehl
DIY in Europe Austria
Austria has experienced an economic downswing in the year 2001, as have various other European countries as well. The GDP forecasts have been perceptibly marked down. The unemployment rate is on the increase. To add to these problems comes the government’s austerity package, which is hitting the construction industry particularly hard.
How are things in the DIY retail sector? For the first six months of 2001 the Industry and Commerce Research Institute announced growth of three per cent for the building products and hardware retail trade – but this in real terms will probably come to a drop of one per cent. So the industry frequently talks about a general decline – the “golden age” is  now a thing of the past. But the major DIY groups are increasingly going for promotional measures (including TV advertising). The first half-year at least brought them slight rates of growth, with a few even showing clear growth over the previous year, though sometimes at the cost of reduced margins owing to the many price campaigns of all kinds.
The eleventh of September has changed the world – for DIY superstores as well? At the beginning there was a noticeable reluctance to spend, but the month of October as a rule bettered the previous year’s results once again. The industry is looking forward to the Christmas period with a positive attitude. Consumers are tending to create their own quality of life in the home – renovating the living-room before the holidays or retiling the bathroom, for example. Not to forget heat-insulating measures, now that the annual accounts affected  by the increased energy costs have come in. We will know at the beginning of next year whether the positive expectations have been fulfilled and, if so, on what sort of a scale.