Rainer Strnad
Rainer Strnad
DIY plus

Editorial

Generation rent, share, Internet, etc.

Deep insights, facts & figures: Premium information for the home improvement industry.
  • Retailers and suppliers: exclusive insights
  • Market analyses and country reports
  • Trends in the DIY and garden market
  • Latest news and archive
TRIAL OFFER
Online subscription
Continue reading now
"Europe is changing" was the editorial title in the last edition of DIY International. We discussed how dramatically the retail landscape is currently changing. 
But one question is at least just as fascinating: what is really changing on the part of the customer? An ageing society, the trend to individualisation, the influence of the Internet - it comes up again and again. But what exactly is happening with the up-and-coming generation of customers who are currently in their 20s to early 30s? How should we identify them at all? Labels such as millenials, digital natives, generation Y, generation Internet or generation rent are on offer.
No matter how we wish to define or name them: one thing they have in common is that they are setting a trend in consumer markets to no longer see their salvation in constantly having more. But the consumer goods industry and retail are highly focussed on more and more, on growth.
For this reason, retailers are attempting to react to the sharing economy, for example, by wanting to be a part of it themselves, and getting more involved in hiring out tools. And they are responding to the young, modern, urban clientele with new store formats, like the ones we present in this edition of DIY International.
But there is no getting around it: the industry could have a problem with the up-and-coming generation of young adults in Europe and North America. After all, this population group doesn't really know what to do with the core business of the do-it-yourself industry: basically, with doing it yourself.
Because if this generation, for example in Great Britain or in Spain, is excluded from buying property like their parents did, due to the fact that they can no longer afford it, then their interest in home improvement drops - as it is no longer their own home.
Meanwhile, young consumers are making virtue out of necessity and declaring that possessions are no longer important to them. This is a phenomenon which the automobile industry also has to deal with. The old status symbols - my car, my house, my garden - are suffering a loss in value. And if you do have them, you don't want any work with them. Which means: the status symbol "my home improvement project" is also losing its value.
So are do-it-for-me or buy-it-yourself sustainable models for the current do-it-yourself industry? One thing's for sure: whatever kind of generation comes up in its place - it won't be a generation DIY.
Rainer Strnad
Contact: Phone +49/72 43/575-207, E-Mail r.
Back to homepage
Related articles
Read also