Afraid of Amazon?

Digitalisation - where do we start and end on this subject? A magazine such as this can't offer more than a current snapshot, because activities in all areas of the market are too diverse and wide-ranging. And yet I am convinced that it is right to produce such a magazine and devote an issue of DIY International primarily to this topic.Although the magazine issue had long since been planned down to the last detail by this time, the 5th Global DIY Summit in Berlin belatedly reinforced this decision. Indeed, a common thread ran through all the presentations: how does this sector deal with the situation that more and more customers see the advantages of e-commerce and the business model of high street DIY retailing is increasingly being called into question? The popular slogan in the trade, accord­ing to the statements put forward, seems to be "Who's afraid of Amazon?" And the answer is: quite a few.Of course, the summit didn't just stoke up fears - it also propagated optimism. After all, there are enough examples and success stories from the bricks and mortar trade in the virtual world.This magazine brings together a whole string of these, and one name crops up repeatedly in this context: Lowe's. The American giant has already attracted plenty of attention with its Innovation Labs, and so it needs to be included here too.

However, there are topics and players that one might not immediately have thought of. At the summit in Stockholm a year ago, for example, the Russian builder's merchant Petrovich showed how it can be done and we reported on it. That would have been perfect for this issue.Readers of the magazine might be similarly surprised when they read about the online shop Brico-direct - and surprised when they read the full website address: www.brico-direct.tn. In Tunisia, therefore, a wholesale company has skipped a retail step and hasn't stopped at bricks and mortar stores but has preferred to go straight to the Internet with the idea of DIY, which has a relatively limited spread in the country. Or, as the boss of Brico-direct puts it, to bypass the distribution evolution.Will the bricks and mortar trade simply be bypassed in future? At the summit in Berlin, Obi boss Sergio Giroldi, the new president of the European…