Outsourcing Of Home Improvement Tasks Declined In Q4 2019

The European Home Improvement Monitor Q4 2019 focuses on Do It Yourself (DIY) versus Do It For Me (DIFM). In other words, doing home improvement jobs yourself or outsourcing them. The general expectation in the home improvement industry is to see a trend towards DIFM. This because of two reasons: First, the European population is ageing. At some point, the baby boom generation is no longer able to do DIY jobs themselves, whilethis group is also the most DIY minded of the population. They were used to doing constructive jobs themselves and had the skills to complete them. Second, the younger generation is less experienced when it comes to home improvement and therefore they have a lack of skills. So, the older generation is not able to do home improvement jobs as frequently anymore and the younger generation is less capable of doing them. Combining this, we anticipate an increase in Do It For Me. Which has indeed been the development until last year when there was a sudden drop in Do IT For Me.


European Home Improvement Monitor Q4 2019 – USP Marketing Consultancy
               
Labour shortage causes drop in DIFM
Looking at the percentages of DIY and DIFM home improvement jobs in the European Home Improvement Monitor Q4 2019, we see a gradual increase in the share of DIFM since 2014. However, in 2019, we notice a sudden drop. The share of DIFM is no longer increasing. In fact, it decreased on a European level. For this, we have different explanations.

Firstly, there is a high labour shortage in some European countries. This means less labour and thus less professionals available to do jobs for consumers. Furthermore, labour costs have increased significantly. This turns the trend towards DIY, because when outsourcing jobs is expensive, consumers tend to do the jobs themselves.

Another explanation for this drop is that DIY stores succesfully motivate younger generations to do home improvement jobs themselves.As this generation is moves to different houses more often, their impact on the total amount of home improvement jobs is large.. This ‘housing market starter’ generation has less money to spend. In addition, they are faced with high labour shortage and high labour costs, so they will be more likely do the jobs themselves.

DIY most popular in France
Obviously, this is an average of European numbers. Zooming in on the differences per country, we see that there are cultural differences. In France, where 75% of all jobs were DIY jobs, it is much more common to do home improvement jobs yourseld. In contrast, in southern- European countries like  like Italy and spain it is more common to outsource home improvement jobs. There, approximately half of all jobs were Do-It-For-Me jobs.

DIFM will keep increasing
Despite of the trend break in 2019 we still expect the share of Do-It-For-Me jobs will continue to grow over the next years. Although, it will depend on the development of labour shortages. Furthermore, it depends on whether DIY stores are able to make interesting offers by providing not only products, but also installation service. Nowadays, a trend towards DIY stores providing both products and services is already seen. For now, it is unclear what will happen in the future. The key demographic driver of the older generation becoming too old to conduct home improvement jobs themselves is still ongoing. In conclusion, we still anticipate an increase in DIFM and this drop, which was mainly caused by labour shortage, will be temporary. For more detailed information we refer you to the European Home Improvement Monitor Q4 2019.

Source : USP Marketing Consultancy

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