Identifying the most promising segments of home products and DIY goods buyers

Construction and repairment are complex processes with many stages included: from foundation to fine finishing and minor maintenance. Depending on what exactly needs to be done, different building materials are required, and they can be bought in different places.

Our client, the largest DIY hypermarket chain in Belarus with over 70,000 SKUs, saw an opportunity to increase sales by better understanding the customers’ needs at different stages of construction work. It was necessary to understand:

• Which of the segments is the most promising in terms of volume and attraction complexity?
• How exactly can representatives of this segment be attracted to our hypermarket?

Methodology:

• Conducting eight focus groups with people from the Belarusian regions who were engaged in various work types at all construction stages.
• Survey of people who were engaged in construction (among 17,000 people we found 1,500 respondents with whom final interviews were conducted).
• Analysis of the best international practices by foreign DIY retailers.

Main results:

• We described the portraits of various buyer segments according to work stage, sales places, criteria for choosing building materials, behavior during repairs, building materials costs, socio-demographic and other characteristics.
• We determined the market volume at each construction stage.
• We assessed the market volume according to construction stages for more than 40 categories of building materials.
• We learned the customer attitudes to other stores, and also identified the competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• We learned how buyers differ in Minsk and in other regions.
• We learned how customers of various stores differ and why they buy particularly there.
• We identified the most interesting segments for the client according to costs.
• We determined how to attract and retain customers; we developed recommendations in the fields of assortment, pricing policy, service and promotion.

By dint of different researches (i.e. research of the costs level, research of criteria for choosing buyers, research of attitudes towards prices, service and assortment, competitor research), it becomes possible to predict consumer behavior when choosing certain products, to determine what are the clients’ strengths and weaknesses in relation to competitors. Proper collection and data analysis allows clients to segment demand, consumers and select the most interesting customer segments. Moreover, by understanding how people choose and what is important to them, a company can set itself apart from competitors and implement specific measures to increase sales.