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Is it smart to shop in DIY stores? NOT REALLY!
More and more Europeans come to decision to rebuild or redecorate their flats on their own. They decide to embellish their gardens or even build a whole house! There is also a shortcut describing that part of market: DIY – Do-It-Yourself. One of the department store chains even called those people ‘Heroes of their own houses’. Entities contributing to this phenomenon are local building materials warehouses and multinational DIY chains.
We find that trend interesting and we definitely approve it. There are few factors affecting on the DIY-popularity, i.e. increasing accessibility and diversity of wide known building materials, still decreasing prices, lower delivery cost or constantly upgraded off- and online expertise.
Meanwhile it’s a common belief that supermarkets offer above mentioned services better. I’d like to dispel that idea! Stay with me for a little longer and you’ll see, how it really works :)
Naturally the main criterion for consumers is the price – and so it is in construction trade. Some polish DIY chains declare, that nobody could beat their prices. To customer it’s crystal clear that products they offer are the cheapest in the market. However, how many people will notice that those special deals are category killers, because those series are produced only for particular chains? It’s impossible to buy such products somewhere else to compare them – and, above that, they usually have different specifications!
For example an oriented strand board, which generally has 12 mm width, in DIY store has only 11 mm. Rock wool in DIY store has 0,044 W/mK, elsewhere in the market it has 0,039 W/mK. Drywall profiles’ width in DIY stores would be considerably lower than the standard 0,60 mm – probably not even 0,50 mm, but 0,48 mm!
The second facet customers are often taken in is the wide range of the offer. DIY stores have some products at lower prices - but there is a 'bait'. One, at most two products from particular merchandise group are maximally slimmed down – just to cut their price and draw the attention of the customers. Instead at the remaining variety DIY stores ply customers oftentimes with even few-hundred-percent mark-ups! Here are some examples:
- The french 'green' DIY chain offers a waterproof plasterboard at the price of 19,87 net (PLN/pcs.), whereas our price is 19,88 (link), but i.e. white plasterboard, which in our shop is 12,44 PLN (link), in that store is 14,28 - it’s 14,7% more expensive!!
- Popular polystyrene XPS 300 costs in our shop 15,80 PLN/m² (link), in DIY stores 25,00 (the 'yellow-blue' store) and 26,02 (the 'green' store).
- Hot air welding roofing felt V60S30 we carry at 3,52 PLN/m² (link), in DIY stores 4,03 (the 'yellow-blue' store) and 4,72 (the 'green' store).
- You can also get in our shop a PCV elbow 110/90 at the price of 4,89 PLN (link), in DIY store for the price of 8,70 (the 'green' store) – in that case it’s 77,9% more expensive!!
You might say that to prove my thesis I have purposely chosen products, that are cheaper in our shop and building materials warehouses in general. I assure you that the list I’ve prepared is very long and the realbud.com internet store run by us is a place, where you can countercheck all the given examples.
Another very important comparative dimension is convenience. What I mean is the off-the-shelf stocks and array of materials carried by the stores. It seems that DIY stores’ huge warehouses guarantee more commodity than local chains do. Particularly that’s true, but a lot of local building materials warehouses have similar areas. Perhaps the choice sometimes would be narrower, but undeniably the quality of merchandise would be higher. So, is it worth to choose coziness at the cost of re-shopping, when extremely lanky or simply Asian import products would fail?
One thing is sure – in a building warehouse you’ll get all products necessary to build or redecorate. Maybe their offer isn’t as wide as DIY stores’, but I’m convinced that you’ll find a product that will be appropriate to your work.
Another issue is transport and logistic - here also the warehouses prevail. Decisive majority of them have been building for 20-25 relations with minivan, 18-wheels and HDS cars drivers. Due to that prices are usually the same as in DIY stores – and sometimes you can even bargain with them ;)
After all those drivers are local people – your neighbors, friends or family members. The possibility of combining the deliveries is an additional attribute cutting the price down. On the other hand, DIYs lion’s share of customers buy relatively small products. Afterwards they pack their shopping up and transport on their own. In building materials warehouses most of shopping is done with the delivery to construction site, so the delivery costs can be shared among various customers. What is more – warehouses repeatedly delivery FREE.
The last argument, but in my opinion the most important one, is the service and expertise. I titled and began the article with talking about the price. Price, price, always the price. But have you ever had to come back to the DIY store, because the product you bought turned out to be inappropriate? Have you ever met a store worker who got out of the way instead of helping you – or he was simply engaged by another customer and had no time for you? Are the DIY workers engineers with building practice and natural curiosity and enthusiasm to the construction sector? Probably not, however, in Realbud you bet they are!
Our merchant staff and consultants are highly qualified engineers. Most of them are construction sector workers not only by profession – it’s part of their life! They’re here just for you and they always individually advice you from the bottom of their hearts, as if they were building or redecorating their own house. The service and approach are priceless and they should induce you to reflect about the shopping experience.
I mentioned above four convincing arguments that show DIY stores aren’t cheaper than warehouses. Even if there are some products which, fairly compared, are cheaper in DIY, globally the whole process and purchase is way more beneficial, pleasant and professional in local warehouses. We’re surely not against the DIY stores, which also have their positive aspects, but we wanted to give you a material to go over reaching an aware decision during shopping, building or redecorating. And that’s all ;)
Speak to you soon!
