Internet approaches

The differences between the chains are great when it comes to taking advantage of e-commerce and virtual shopping opportunities. A survey carried out in August last year by Odsgard shows that the trade must open up further to virtual shopping. Odsgard is the leading Danish trade publisher for the building and DIY sectors.
On the one hand everybody agrees that electronic trading is a natural extension of the internet concept per se – and some chains have indeed established a virtual shop in order to test both the concept and the market.
But on the other hand it is quite evident that the major DIY chains in Denmark have yet to put their hearts into it. At best the current attempts can be described as somewhat feeble. Less charitable comments range from worthless to very bad.
For the wholesale organisations it is a major obstacle that a well-stocked internet shop will bring them into direct competition and consequently conflict with their members – a problem that the privately owned chains also face.
At present the market leader in e-commerce is the mail order company Harald Nyborg A/S (the Danish equivalent of Otto Versand in Germany, for example), which carries more than
6 800 products on its website. Although Harald Nyborg also owns the DIY chain Jem & Fix (26 shops), it is not yet represented on the net. The DIY products carried by Harald Nyborg can be viewed in eleven so-called “catalogue markets” similar to those operated by Argus in the UK. At the moment only three out of the 17 DIY shops on the internet are operated by “land-based” DIY chains, Dendek, Silvan and Råd & Dåd.