Accuracy is key

At present, the European DIY sector is no longer growing under its own steam. The figures leave no room for sugar-coating: Italy’s DIY stores, for instance, lost around 3.5 per cent in turnover in 2025 and also fell short of the previous year’s figures in the first quarter of 2026. Austria reported a decline of 2.1 per cent for the third quarter of 2025, and German DIY stores were also slightly below the previous year’s figures at the start of 2026. The pandemic-driven DIY boom has fizzled out, and the weak construction sector – in Germany, only around 206,600 flats were completed in 2025 – is dampening demand for traditional DIY product ranges.

The consolidation at the top of the market highlights just how serious the situation is: with Hellweg and the Baywa Bau and garden centres, two long-established chains have now initiated insolvency proceedings under their own administration. In total, more than 4,000 employees and over 100 sites are affected. The companies cite ongoing consumer reluctance to spend, increased purchasing, energy and rental costs, as well as the weak construction sector, as the causes.

The message for the entire sector is this: in a market that is no longer growing, profit is achieved not through higher turnover, but through lower losses. That is precisely where the focus should lie.

As long as sales were booming, growth masked certain inaccuracies. In a flat market, however, each of these becomes costly. Shrinkage that goes unnoticed. Stock shortages lead to out-of-stock situations and thus to lost revenue. Excess stock ties up capital and must be written off at the end of the season. Stock planning based on incorrect figures.

The omnichannel approach exacerbates this problem. Click & Collect, marketplace integration and reservations only work with accurate, real-time stock data; otherwise, there is a risk of cancellations and a loss of trust – particularly at the most critical stage: collection. Inventory taking is therefore no longer a tedious chore for the annual accounts, but a matter of operational control. In a cut-throat market, anyone who does not know their stock levels precisely is giving away the very factors that determine whether they are in the black or the red.

This is where the real dilemma lies: stock accuracy is extremely labour-intensive – yet staff in the retail sector have become both scarce and expensive. According to data from the Competence Centre for Securing Skilled Labour (KOFA), sales roles recently accounted for the largest share of the skilled labour shortage in the retail sector and are among the professions with the highest staffing requirements nationwide. As the baby boomers continue to retire, this shortage will become even more acute in the coming years. At the same time, labour costs are rising noticeably: nominal collectively agreed wages in the retail sector have increased by around 13 to 14 per cent between 2022 and 2024, depending on the collective bargaining region, as a result of the latest wage agreements.

The German Retail Association draws a clear conclusion from this: Companies are increasingly forced to automate and outsource routine tasks in particular. This is because tackling a major task such as stock-taking with their own, already stretched workforce presents an unenviable choice in practice: either reduce staffing levels on the shop floor during the count – or accept overtime, fatigue and a drop in quality. Both options eat into profit margins that nobody can afford to spare.

The solution lies in decoupling precision work from the core workforce. Specialised, digitally supported teams that can be scaled up or down as required – for instance, during stock-taking, the roll-out of electronic price labels or seasonal floor space adjustments – relieve the burden on the core workforce rather than tying them down. The decisive factor here is not the question of ‘in-house or outsourced’, but whether the result is reliable, fully documented and can be managed in real time.

OMS Retail GmbH’s project experience also confirms this trend. Across more than ten European countries and with over 10,000 retail projects per year, there is a growing demand for stock-taking services. This underlines the fact that more and more retailers are specifically outsourcing peak staffing demands so that they can deploy their specialist staff on the shop floor and in customer service.

Anyone expanding across national borders or taking over branch networks as part of market consolidation needs the same standard at every location – be it in Hanover, Vienna or Milan. It is precisely the varied nature of European markets – from declining sales in Southern Europe to volatile regions in Eastern Europe – that calls for processes which can be adapted to any branch network without compromising on accuracy.

In a growth market, precision was the icing on the cake. In a cut-throat market, it is a prerequisite. Ultimately, the margin favours those who can scale up accuracy without incurring new fixed costs.