Customer Journey Research for Home Improvement
Home improvement purchase decisions follow two very different paths. Do-it-yourself (DIY) consumers research, buy, and install themselves. Do-it-for-me (DIFM) consumers trigger the purchase but hire a painter, handyman, or specialist to do the work. Each path runs from inspiration to use through different channels and responds to different triggers. We map both journeys end-to-end: online surveys with consumers, phone interviews with the professionals who shape DIFM decisions.
4
journey research phases
30+
years of exclusive sector focus
DIY + DIFM
journeys mapped separately, then integrated
20+
countries of online and phone fieldwork
Our clients
What We Measure
Inspiration and Need Recognition
What triggers a project: life events, seasonal cues, social inspiration (Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok), or a breakdown. How early browsing shapes the brief before any product is searched for.
Research and Product Discovery
How consumers move from intent to shortlist across search, manufacturer and retailer sites, marketplaces, reviews, and in-store browsing. Which sources are decisive, and how the online and in-store mix shifts by category and country.
Channel Choice and Purchase Decision
How the final brand and channel get chosen, and what drives it: price, availability, advice, delivery, returns, loyalty. Where consumers walk in expecting one brand and walk out with another.
DIY vs DIFM Decision
What determines whether a consumer does the work or hires a professional: confidence, time, complexity, risk, budget. How that split reshapes the journey and varies by category and country.
DIFM Professional Selection
For DIFM journeys: how consumers find and choose a painter, fitter, or installer, and how that professional then shapes brand and product selection.
Friction Points and Moments of Truth
Where the journey stalls: confusing range, out-of-stock at decision, poor instructions, delivery and returns problems. Which cost most, and how DIY friction (technical) differs from DIFM (relational).
Subsectors Covered
Subsector
Paint (Consumer)
DIY purchases led by colour and social media before brand or technical attributes. Often starts with colour discovery and ends with application satisfaction. Retailer substitution is high.
Subsector
DIY and Hand & Power Tools
Repeat-purchase, technology-driven, with strong loyalty once established. Online research and review videos dominate discovery; platform decisions are long-term (battery ecosystems).
Subsector
Bathroom Products
Mostly DIFM for installation, consumer-led on the brief. Showroom and online inspiration shape the choice; the professional translates it. Long consideration cycles.
Subsector
Kitchen Products
Long-cycle, high-involvement, with showrooms, dealers, online inspiration, and partner co-decision. Retailers play both inspirational and advisory roles.
Subsector
Flooring (Consumer)
Strong DIY/DIFM split by type (vinyl click and laminate skew DIY; solid wood, tile, resin skew DIFM). Samples are an important touchpoint.
Subsector
Decorative Sundries
Fillers, tapes, brushes, rollers, finishing. Low-involvement but habitual; loyalty built through repeated retailer exposure and performance.
Subsector
Outdoor and Gardening
Seasonal, strong DIY component, increasingly disrupted by e-commerce. Paving, decking, buildings, planters, tools, maintenance.
Subsector
Wallpaper and Wall Coverings
Revitalized by social media, inspiration-led via Pinterest and Instagram. Sample ordering and pre-purchase visualization are key.
Note: This is a portion of the subsectors and product categories we cover within home improvement journey research.
How Customer Journey Research Works in Home Improvement - Example Project
Example project
Scenario: a paint manufacturer wants to know why DIY consumers in France default to a competitor at the DIY retailer despite higher online awareness. Where in the journey does brand preference get overridden, and by what?
Phase 1 (Explore): 25 IDIs with recent DIY paint buyers per country, including shop-alongs where possible, plus 8 IDIs with professional painters for the DIFM view. Goal: map the AS-IS journey from inspiration through the aisle to application.
Phase 2 (Validate): a CAWI survey with 800 recent DIY buyers per country and a CATI survey with 150 painters per country quantify channel preferences, decisive triggers at purchase, in-store vs online influence, and the role of professional recommendation.
Phase 3 (Shape Future): a co-creation workshop with 8 to 10 participants per country, mixing consumers, painters, the client team, and where possible a retailer category manager, produces a TO-BE journey with prioritized retail and digital improvements.
Output: a validated AS-IS map for the DIY and DIFM-mediated consumer, a quantified friction-point matrix, a co-created TO-BE journey with action plan, and an executive summary deck.
Note: This is an example of a typical project design. Every study is tailored to the specific product category, audience mix, and geographic scope.
Target Audiences
Note: Audience mix is tailored to each project based on product category and the balance of DIY and DIFM in that category.
DIY Consumers [CAWI]
The core audience for most home improvement journey research. Reached via robust consumer panels, recruited against project type, recent purchase, category usage, and household profile filters. The DIY consumer journey is the only one in our practice where online is the preferred method.
Recent Purchasers (DIY) [CAWI]
Specifically targeted for category-specific journey research (paint, flooring, tools, garden, etc.). Memory of the recent journey is fresh, so the detail recall is rich and the inferred journey is closer to what actually happened.
Recent Purchasers (DIFM) [CAWI / CATI]
Consumers who recently commissioned a professional to do the work. Provide perspective on how professional selection happens, how trust is built, and how the consumer’s brand preference interacts with the professional’s recommendation.
Professional Painters [CATI]
The main DIFM audience for paint, decorative, and sundries categories. Strong brand habits shaped by daily use. Reached by phone with trade screeners against active project work and category usage.
Handymen and General DIFM Pros [CATI]
Cover multi-category jobs (small renovation, fitting, repair, maintenance). Important for mixed-category journey research and for understanding how a single professional can influence brand choice across many product categories.
Kitchen Fitters and Bathroom Installers [CATI]
Specialist DIFM pros who shape brand selection in higher-ticket categories. Often work with dealers and showrooms, creating a multi-step DIFM journey.
Interior Designers [CATI / IDI]
High-involvement journey influencers for kitchen, bathroom, flooring, and decorative categories. Smaller but high-value audience with strong specification influence on premium projects.
DIY Retailers (Category Managers, Store Staff) [CATI / IDI]
The trade side of the consumer journey. Help validate consumer-reported behavior with channel-side data on stocking decisions, in-store advice, range planning, and promotional activity.
Online Platforms and Marketplaces [CATI / IDI]
The fastest-growing channel in home improvement. Often researched separately to map their distinct customer journey, where search ranking, reviews, and Prime-style delivery dominate the decision moment.
Our Advantage
Home improvement journeys are split between two consumer worlds that look similar on paper but behave very differently. A consumer who chooses to paint their own living room and a consumer who hires a painter look almost identical demographically. Their journeys, however, diverge at the second step and never converge again. The DIY journey ends in the aisle of a DIY retailer; the DIFM journey ends in a phone call to a tradesperson. We research both, in parallel, and overlay the maps so the client can see where the same product category is won or lost on two different battlefields.
For the consumer side of the journey, we use CAWI with verified recent purchasers recruited from properly maintained consumer panels. For the trade side - professional painters, handymen, fitters, retailer staff - we use CATI with trade-specific screeners. The methods are matched to the audiences because using one method for both gives a structurally wrong picture. Generalist agencies often run online for everyone and end up with a thin DIY view and a missing DIFM view.
Our European Home Improvement Monitor, running since 2013 with 26,400 consumer interviews per year across 11 European countries and 22 product categories, gives us standing benchmark data on DIY vs DIFM splits, channel shifts, and category dynamics. Our Painter Insight Monitor, with 250 professional painters per country across 8 European markets, gives us the same depth on the trade side. When we run a custom journey study for your category, we can contextualize your findings within these broader patterns. That benchmark context is not available from any generalist research provider.
Project Examples
A global wallpaper manufacturer ran a consumer journey and market sizing study across 8 international markets. The research mapped inspiration sources, the role of social media in category revival, channel preferences, and decisive brand moments for a category being reshaped by social media-led trends.
BE, FR, DE, IT, KR, SE, TR, UK
A garden paving manufacturer ran 45 face-to-face interviews with recent buyers, combining product testing with journey research. Output identified winning concepts for production investment, mapped the inspiration-to-installation journey, and surfaced unmet needs across four European markets.
FR, DE, NL, UK
A power tool manufacturer ran a seven-country consumer and professional study on purchasing criteria, channel preferences, and brand triggers among DIY and professional users. Output: a layered journey view distinguishing the two audiences and the touchpoints that matter for each.
DK, FR, DE, IT, PL, ES, SE
A painting tools manufacturer ran a consumer journey and brand strength study across two key European markets, mapping the path from purchase consideration through retail selection to post-use evaluation. Output prioritized retail-shelf and brand-communication actions.
UK, DE
A painting tools manufacturer ran a market sizing study mapping volumes by category and channel. The study informed range and channel strategy across three major European DIY markets.
UK, DE, FR
Deliverables
- Validated AS-IS journey map per audience (DIY consumer, DIFM consumer, DIFM professional) and country
- Friction-point matrix with quantified commercial impact scores, ranked and split by DIY and DIFM where relevant
- Touchpoint inventory: which are used at each stage, how they perform, where channel gaps exist
- TO-BE journey map (with co-creation) and prioritized retail and digital interventions
- Country comparison of where journey dynamics converge and where channel structure forces them apart
- Verbatim quote bank by audience type, journey stage, and country
- Raw data file (SPSS or Excel cross-tabs)
- Executive summary deck (5 to 8 slides) for board or management committee
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How do you research DIY and DIFM journeys when they involve different audiences and different methods?
We run the consumer-facing side of the journey using CAWI with verified recent purchasers. We run the trade-facing side (painters, handymen, fitters, retailer staff) using CATI with trade screeners. The two studies are designed to overlay, so the same journey stages are mapped from both perspectives. Output is an integrated journey view that shows where consumer preference and professional recommendation align, and where they diverge.
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What sample sizes do you need for a home improvement journey study?
For DIY consumer quantitative validation: 500 to 1,000 per country (CAWI). For DIFM professional validation: 100 to 250 per country (CATI). For qualitative exploration: 8 to 25 IDIs or shop-alongs per country per audience type. The exact numbers depend on subsegment analysis needs (renovators vs maintainers, age groups, channel users, project types).
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Can you run home improvement journey studies across multiple European countries simultaneously?
Yes. We routinely run harmonized multi-country home improvement studies across 3 to 11+ markets in a single project. The European Home Improvement Monitor itself runs across 11 markets, and our custom studies use the same fieldwork infrastructure. Channel structure varies significantly by country, so multi-country journey design requires careful local adaptation.
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How long does a home improvement customer journey study take?
A typical three-phase study (qualitative exploration, CAWI plus CATI validation, co-creation workshop) takes 10 to 14 weeks from briefing to final delivery. A single-phase CAWI-only consumer study can be completed in 5 to 7 weeks. Timelines depend on country count, audience mix, and whether shop-alongs or mystery shopping are included.
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How do you reach DIY consumers vs DIFM professionals reliably?
For DIY consumers, online panels are well-developed in home improvement and produce reliable, recruitable, verified-purchase samples. For DIFM professionals (painters, handymen, fitters), online is not reliable. We recruit them by phone using trade screeners that verify active project work, category usage, and decision-making role. Matching the method to the audience is the difference between a useful journey study and a misleading one.
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Can journey research be combined with brand or category-tracking studies?
Yes. Many of our home improvement projects combine journey mapping with brand health metrics, NPS, category penetration, or share-of-shelf data. The journey framework provides the structural backbone; brand and category metrics are layered onto specific stages. Where our home improvement monitor is already in place, custom journey work can be benchmarked against it directly.
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At what stage should we commission home improvement customer journey research?
When you are losing share at the retail shelf, watching online competitors take a category, seeing a shift between DIY and DIFM in your category, or losing the recommendation battle with professionals. Also before launching a new product, entering a new channel (especially e-commerce), or repositioning a retail range. Journey research is most useful when the category is in motion and you do not yet know which stage of the journey is changing fastest.
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