The diy market - Belgium

1.1 Market definition and structure

Do-it-yourself refers to non-professional manual activities, repair, creation, improvement and maintenance of small objects in the house. This study concentrates on the DIY market and therefore excludes the BtoB activity of retailers and DIY stores

The do-it-yourself market therefore covers a wide variety of items. The Union Nationale des Industriels du Bricolage (Inoha) lists 11 main categories: building, plumbing/sanitary, garden, paint/glue, wood/joinery, coatings, tools, electricity, hardware, decoration and thermal comfort.

The world market for DIY products amounted to 594 billion euros in 2018 and the market has been growing steadily for several years. The United States are largely dominant, accounting for about half of the world market by value. In Europe, the biggest DIY markets are the United Kingdom, Germany and France. 

The Belgian do-it-yourself market grew by 3.3% in 2019 and by 16,4% between 2008 and 2017 but is characterised by relative instability.

The growth of the market can be explained by a growing interest in do-it-yourself, particularly in Belgium. The market is highly concentrated and dominated by a few large players, the main ones being the DIY chains Hubo Belgium (Bricoalliance), Brico (Maxeda) and Gamma (Intergamma).

The Belgian market is also characterised by an attachment to physical shops and digitalisation is therefore still weak but growing. This is one reason why the market is cyclical, the sales being largely dependant on the weather and the consumer will to visit the physical shops. One other reason is that the garden category is the most important product category sold by DIY shops in Belgium. Bad weather thus means less sales in the garden category which affect the turnover of DIY shops.