Women are the future of DIY

More than three quarters of French women carry out DIY tasks. Half of them do this with a partner, and 28 per cent wield a hammer or paintbrush on their own. These figures emerge from a survey carried out by the MKO market research institute, the results of which were presented at a symposium of UNIBAL, the French manufacturers’ association. Women were questioned about what they expected of both products and DIY superstores. Half of them want to be offered advice by experts, by which they mean someone other than sales staff, and 56 per cent expect to be listened to more carefully. Which could be really worth the effort for the DIY groups: 65 per cent of the women interviewed disclosed that they had overspent the amount budgeted for a project by 10 to 30 per cent. A detailed report on the symposium with the significant title, “Women, the future of do-it-yourself” (“La femme, avenir du bricolage”) is published in the next issue of our specialist magazine, DIY in Europe.