The future of DIY

[Pete Verdon]

Biggest deal for me is probably range of stock. It seems to be more and more common that I go to B&Q or Wickes and come home empty handed or at least not with everything I went to get. That might be them getting worse or me getting more adventurous or more likely both.

Don't waste space on scatter cushions, carpets and fitted kitchen displays like B&Q is currently doing. I want to buy ironmongery, plumbing fittings, electrical parts, timber, building materials and so on. When I want furnishings (and it's not that long since I had a whole empty house to furnish) I don't go to a "DIY" shop.

Have a decent website which displays all your products. There's no need for an online sales facility (for me, anyway), I just want to see what you have (and at what prices) before I go, so that I can plan the project. Decent pictures, dimensions, etc, not just a one-liner cribbed from the supplier's catalogue. Live stock figures for my local branch (it's 2010, don't tell me your stock-control system can't talk to your Web servers) so I know I won't have a wasted journey. A search facility that doesn't suck (get a Google appliance in if you can't do it yourself).

A few kiosks around the shop where I can (probably on a lightly-modified version of that same decent website with good search) search the catalogue to find out whether an item is stocked and where it is (ie shelf number). I seem to spend a fair bit of time wandering around looking for things, before I can find a member of staff to tell me where it is (or that they don't stock it; see above).

Reasonable opening hours. B&Q's are ok; if you close at six you won't get much custom from me, since I tend to drop in on the way home from work during the week, acquiring the materials to do the job at the weekend. Decent opening hours all weekend would be good, so lobby the government to stop restricting everyone's activities based on some people's religion :-)

I don't really need advice from staff - I get that here :-) True experts could be handy I guess, but that's hard to achieve and any less is not really useful. I don't go to a shop to find out how to do something anyway, I go to buy the materials (and occasionally tools) that I need.

It would be nice to be able to buy more in the way of timber, eg a nice length of beech or oak as well as carcassing softwood and MDF, but to be fair that might be a bit specialised for a general "DIY" store.

I do occasionally find automatic checkouts handy as an "express lane" when I've just nipped in for a packet of screws or whatever, but for any more than that they're a waste of time and highly annoying. Keep the staffed checkouts and limit the auto kiosks to perhaps two, with nowhere to put piles of stuff plus suitable signage, so that they just get used by people with a couple of small items in hand.

...and just to cap it all off it would be good to match TLC et al in prices. If you did everything else I've suggested but weren't the cheapest I would still use it for "everything in one place, right now" convenience, but you'd miss out on my big orders like bathroom refits, workshop wiring, etc.

Pete

[Andrew Gabriel]

B&Q used to - I still have some of the bags of loose nails in the garage. That, and drums of cable you cut the length you require, drums of hose you cut the length you require, etc enabled them to keep a much larger range than they do today, which is why they no longer meet my requirements. For example, they used to keep a drum of 6 core mains flex to cut off what you want. It probably wasn't a fast moving item, but they only needed a couple of drums in the store. There won't be enough sales of it to justify shelf space for pre-cut bundles, so it's gone.

Conversely, many electrical wholsalers will now cut you a length of the more exotic things like this, and have taken trade from B&Q.

[peteshew]

I was in France recently and buying cable was by the metre, but you had to find an assistant to cut the required lengths and write you a ticket to take to the till, so more labour intensive.

Pete

[The Medway Handyman]

Exactly my experiance.

I suppose I might be called a professional DIYer in that I carry out relatively minor DIY tasks 5 - 6 days a week.

Just had a quick crunch of the numbers on my acounts spreadsheet to reveal the following.

Jan 09 - Dec 09.

92 visits to B&Q, spend £1200. Average spend per visit £13. 79 visits to Wickes, spend £2000. Average spend per visit £25.

So, I'm in B&Q more often, but spend less than I do in Wickes.

Geographically, the Medway Towns is 'landscape' rather than 'portrait' on a map, I live on the left hand edge with a small B&Q very close, Wickes is slap bang in the middle, on the right hand edge is a huge B&Q almost next door to a Screwfix Depot. So my local B&Q is the most convenient.

Reasons for the greater spend in Wickes? First of all, as John said, is the product range. I want a good range of materials, not scatter cushions & table lamps, Wicks is a much better store for the trade user, B&Q seems to be going down the Homebase route. I don't buy from Homebase anyway, waaay too expensive.

Secondly its because Wickes publish a complete price list/catalouge and have a web site reasonably easy to use - though nowhere as good as 'the daddy' - Screwfix. Most of my quotes are done in the evenings or whilst sitting in the van at lunchtime. I can easily price stuff up from Wickes & when I get the job its easier to buy from Wickes.

B&Q on the other hand send out a few 'offer' leaflets, but not a complete list. The B&Q website is simply dire. Virtually unuseable.

Things I don't buy from either place;

Timber. Wouldn't touch B&Q timber with a barge pole - assuming B&Q had a piece of timber straight enough to use as a barge pole. Timber in Wickes is OK, bigger range & cheaper but a proper timber merchant gets nearly all of my spend on decking timber, fence panels etc - over £3K in 09.

Fixings, screws, grab adhesive, plumbing fittings, hardware, consumables. Screwfix & Toolststion get all of this spend simply down to price. I wouldn't mind paying a little more instore, but I'm not going to be ripped off.

Examples;

8 x 100 hammer fixing; B&Q pack of 16 for £7.18, Wickes pack of 20 for £8.46. Toolstation £7.50 per 100. 45p each, 42p each or 7.5p each? Do the math.

Flexible tap connectors (300mm); This is a good example of how crap the B&Q site is. A seach for '300mm flexible tap connector' generates 90 items of plumbing fittings, only 4 items are correct - and they are packs of 4, not singles - which I know B&Q sell.

Apparently "Your search for 300mm flexible tap connectors returned no exact results, below are possible matches".

Anywho, they are around £4 each wheras Toolstation sell them for 95p.

Silicone & Grab Adhesive; £5 - £6 a tube in B&Q, £1.50/£2 from Screwfix.

The list could go on & on.

TBH I'm spending a little more in B&Q than I used to because of the trade card. Every 2 or 3 months I get a cheque for £50 odd which is nice. Wickes reponded with their 'MyCard' but it isn't as good as the B&Q one and is paid in vouchers - can't spend them on beer or curry.

[Stuart Noble]

I agree, and I have to say the SF search function isn't that good either. If I search for "pipe 22 mm", I expect it to throw up "copper tube 22mm". After all, the thing you bend the "tube" with is a "pipe bender". It would seem a simple matter to add a few commonly used terms as keywords

[The Medway Handyman]

Searched the B&Q site for 3" plant pots once - it came up with a newell post cap :-)

[Stuart Noble]

Close enough :-)

[Bernard Peek]

Well here's another one that wants to apologise for you.

The original question was pitched at about the right level, a very open-ended question looking for a broad range of responses to be followed up in-depth. Some people at least seem to want to improve DIY stores. If you can't be helpful at least be silent.

[Bernard Peek]

I think it's clear from the responses that there is no single DIY market, you need to decide which part of the market is likely to be most profitable. If your client is big enough perhaps consider brand-splitting.

You probably need to consider three markets although the three are actually points on a spectrum. First the professional builder/engineer. They need reasonable quality tools and materials, always in stock and at a reasonable price. They may need some help using something new but are more likely to value continuity of supply than the latest high-tech gismos.

Second there's the experienced DIYer. They probably want better quality materials because they are working on their own properties and have to live with the results. They will need some help with new materials and techniques. They want reliable light-usage tools.

Lastly there's the occasional DIYer who is probably restricted to simple repairs and construction kits. They need lots of hand-holding. They will probably also want smaller packs of materials. They aren't going to buy professional grade (or price) tools.

There's perhaps a fourth category, the people who need help in putting together an Ikea flat-pack.

[Jules]

Leave drivel's manhood out of it...

[Jules]

That's why it's all done by weight at my local farm supply place - I just grab the quantity I need from the big bins and put it in a bag, weigh it with the supplied scales, write down the code and weight on the bag, and take it to the till. Sometimes they'll weigh it there too, just to check I'm not trying to pull a fast one, and sometimes they won't.

I get exactly the amount I need, far cheaper than the sheds with the blister packs, and with a minimum of wasteful packaging.

They still offer boxes of nails and screws, too, for those who want it (I usually keep a stash of 'generic' things on the shelves at home, so once in a while I'll just grab a box of 200 or 500 of something so they're there for random little projects when I need them)

They just don't seem worried about it here. Maybe some loss from theft is factored into things, or maybe they just trust people more, or maybe they rely on the place being busy enough that someone wouldn't try taking things.

cheers

Jules

[geoff]

That's your fault for being a perfectionist

[The Medway Handyman]

I'm not complaining, the plant pots look rather nice as you go up the stairs....

[Dave Osborne]

Fundamentally, this is because, along with Maplin (which is now IMHO truly s**te), their search results give results containing *any* of your keywords, not *all* of them as Google notionally does.

There was, no doubt, at the time, a '3" newel post cap' in the catalogue.

Further, search engines index roots of words and strip out punctuation, so, for example if you search for 'brush' or 'brushes' you would get the same results. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that if you search for 'pipewrench' you get every result containing the word 'pipe' or 'pipes'.

It is also worth noting that in many cases, B&Q's website gives results for in-store, but if you click to buy on line, you are offered Screwfix product.

An example is solvent weld waste fittings. They are Marley in store and Floplast in B&Q's Next Day online store, just like Screwfix, but more expensive. Same order codes too.

E.g. 52916 pack of 5 32mm solvent straight coupling £4.94 in B&Q online, £3.95 in Screwfix. Delivery charges are the same, so it seems that B&Q Next Day is fulfilled by Screwfix for 25% more of your hard-earned dosh.

[Dave Osborne]

TMH has that one covered. No job too small; Have Makita, will travel; etc. ;-)

[The Medway Handyman]

Too right matey! Good little earner that. I have actually spent entire days assembling mountains of flat pack.

[PeterC]

Ah yes, I made the mistake of cutting my own and threw the whole system into disarray and upset several people (until they realised that I was English!).

[Bruce]

You're a stupid newel post!

Doesn't have quite the same ring to it. :-(

[geoff]

I look forward to going skiing in the Rochester alps next year then

[The Medway Handyman]

Shouldn't that be " Eff off you are a newell post"?

Still doesn't have quite the same ring either....