Garden centres and DIY stores used to be relatively straightforward affairs with demarcation between the rough-edged trade-only propositions and the softer consumer-focused retailers. They also operated predominantly from physical stores and maybe had a paper-based catalogue on the side but it was the same product assortment.

Over the years things have become increasingly blurred between these two camps and almost all the players in the market have converged to target multiple customer types. This has added plenty of complexity to the operations, which has been further magnified by the addition of new channels – including online, mobile and various platforms for social-commerce. On top of this we also have a variety of store formats that cater for different customer journeys and missions.

This has certainly led to myriad challenges for the various retailers in this sector that includes the big guns like B&Q and partner brand Screwfix along with Dobbies and Homebase as well as a growing band of independent operators.

One of the key challenges of the mixed model involving both trade B2B and consumer B2C customers is that the magnitude of SKUs can be off the charts and the variety of product catalogues that have to be handled can be very tough to manage. Dealing with the associated data is a seriously time-consuming exercise and one that is fraught with the potential for mistakes when handling information moving through the supply chain and customer ordering processes.

Adding to the complexity has been the move to add in cafes to many venues. A growing number of independent retailers in the garden centre category are skewed to the affluent demographic who seem to be particularly partial to restaurants and farm shops. This has led to many garden centres and DIY stores looking more like hospitality venues with a side-line in plants or screws and pots of paint.

Rather ironically Dobbies found its food offering was attracting exactly the wrong customer type with builders flocking to its restaurants for the 10-item breakfast. This good value menu item was reportedly its best-selling product across the whole business. This is as incredible as it is unfortunate.

As a result of such missteps and other issues at the company it has recently announced the closure of 17 stores, which includes all six of its small-format Dobbies urban stores. These had been its effort to appeal to the city centre shopper, a cohort that is looking for distress purchases as well as utilising click & collect services. This is a very different shopper journey to that experienced in massive DIY sheds or vast garden centres.

Such compact city centre stores are a result of the growing use of the online channel for purchasing products for DIY and gardening projects. Clearly the management of these stores with low levels of inventory on site but rapid handling of online-ordered goods requires precision in the management of stock and handling of customer orders.

The prize appears worth the effort, despite the travails of Dobbies, because Screwfix plans to open 100 smaller format stores over the next few years after the successful trial of six outlets across London. Meanwhile at sister company B&Q a new challenge is the integration of circular economy initiatives. B&Q has recently unveiled a new range of refurbished products that are sourced from customer returns, which have been made good as new. These can be bought online or in-store. On top of this the company has also expanded its tool-hire service to 100 products.

These ongoing changes in the DIY and garden centre category highlights the tough challenges that retail leaders face. Managing change and making decisions about technology infrastructures and processes have to be handled very carefully in order that the choices made have sufficient flexibility to handle the inevitable – further – changes that businesses will face in the future.

Glynn Davis, editor, Retail Insider

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