The invention of Convergion

The situation in the home improvement market appears to be at a standstill. After adjusting for inflation, sales in many (European) countries are more or less stagnating – if not actually falling. And it always comes down to price. “The contemporary DIY retail landscape is defined by one dominant force: price.”

So says Thierry Coeman, and he is not just anyone. Coeman is the Belgian industry expert – which means he is by no means familiar only with DIY stores in Belgium. The man has an excellent international network, decades of experience and corresponding insights. And he has courage: not least to spark discussion within the international industry, he has presented “Hammertime²” – a white paper that continues Coeman’s essay “Hammertime”, published in 2021.

The problem with price is: “customers optimise for price, yet expect value-rich experiences.” It is therefore clear that price no longer functions as a differentiating factor. Worse still: in the race to the lowest price, “retail and supply are collectively eroding their future”.

As a solution, Coeman introduces in his new work a literally new term: “Convergion”. This neologism deliberately sets itself apart from „convergence“ – a term that merely describes the obvious, namely „the coming together of channels, value chains and traditionally distinct functions within the ecosystem“. Convergion, on the other hand, does not seek to describe, but rather refers to the conscious shaping of this process, with a shared goal: „meaningful value“.

The Convergion Model, which the author has developed for this purpose, integrates seven dynamics: knowledge, product, service, community, technology, logistics and sustainability. Most remarkable, however, is what lies at the heart of these seven dynamics: the DIY and home improvement store, “the physical and human hub of this ecosystem”.

The fact that the customer journey neither begins nor ends here any longer does not devalue the physical store – on the contrary: because the much-lauded marketplace merely optimises access but creates no differentiated value, it is not the solution. For Coeman, the solution lies in Convergion, which “shifts DIY retail from selling products to orchestrating outcomes across the entire value chain. This transformation inevitably reshapes the role of the physical store itself.”

And what does this store look like? Coeman’s answer can be summed up in one word: human. For him, it is…