Roman impressions

The traditional specialist hardware and household supply stores are valiantly holding their own and are proving to be tough competition for the large-scale sales formats. So trying to find a DIY store in the Rome municipal area is futile. However, they have long since firmly established themselves in the peripheral districts of Rome, readily accessible due to the proximity to large streets, especially to the beltway "l'annulare di Roma" that encompasses the entire city with its conurbation areas. This provides quite a lot of potential: around four million people live in the greater Rome area.
The big global chains are an indispensable part of the trading superstore scene - but that doesn't mean to say that the Italian companies are not in on the act. However, there are, in some cases, considerable differences in concepts, as a visit to four stores shows: Leroy Merlin and Bricoman, which both belong to the French Groupe Adeo, Obi from Germany and Bricofer, which is lauded as being: "100 percento italiano".

Leroy Merlin regards itself as a multi-specialist, according to Jacky Beconcini, who has managed the store in Roma Laurentina since 2016. Another fundamental aspect is essential: "We want to be an inspiration store", reiterates the Frenchman with Italian roots, who has been living in Italy since 2003.The product range quite clearly focuses on home improvement. Not forgetting that the assortment of goods, as well as the store design and presentation are all using emotions to target the extremely important female customers.The concept is realised with numerous mock-up designs and example applications, giving inspiration for ideas, just as Leroy Merlin implements in France as well as in other expansion countries. This is particularly evident in the sanitary department with its bathroom displays.There is no difference to be seen between a Leroy Merlin store in Italy and a domestic store in France. The product groups and customer guidance is the same, just not the product range. The special needs of the Italian customer are top priority for the French DIY store chain and they have a correspondingly good assortment of products to back this up. As an example, Leroy Merlin offers more than 700 security doors in its Roma Laurentina store, which recognises that a large part of their customers are home owners. One of the major differences in the product range is largely because the Italians are not really on a par with French…