Pricing Research for Home Improvement
Home improvement pricing is two markets pretending to be one. A litre of wall paint, a cordless drill, or a bathroom mixer tap faces two very different price judges: the DIY consumer comparing shelf prices in a retail aisle or online, and the professional painter or fitter buying weekly on trade terms. The two audiences carry different corridors, different premiums, and different channel expectations. A price that works in a German DIY superstore can be uncompetitive in French specialist retail, and a brand premium that holds with consumers can collapse entirely at the trade counter where private label is the default. Our pricing research prices both audiences in one integrated study. Consumers respond online, trade professionals by phone, and the outputs show where the optimal price sits for each audience, what each channel will bear, and where a premium, such as a sustainability claim, actually holds in euros.
DIY consumers (CAWI) and trade professionals (CATI) priced in one integrated study
Van Westendorp, Gabor-Granger, and choice-based conjoint expertise in-house
4
proprietary home improvement monitors for category and channel context
20+
countries of home improvement fieldwork, trade and consumer
What We Measure
Consumer Price Corridor & Demand Curve
Van Westendorp corridors among consumers screened for actual category purchase in the past 12 to 24 months. Gabor-Granger demand curves at candidate shelf prices, useful for line pricing across good-better-best tiers. Revenue-optimal and volume-optimal price points reported separately.
Trade Price Corridor
What painters, handymen, and kitchen and bathroom fitters will pay on trade terms. Weekly purchase frequency and time-on-the-job economics built into the questioning. Trade corridor reported side by side with the consumer corridor for the same products.
Premium & Claim Value
Sustainability, durability, and brand heritage premiums measured in euros, not sentiment. Which specific claims support a premium and which collapse at the shelf. Premium conditions: where it holds by audience, channel, and country.
Feature-Price Trade-Offs
Choice-based conjoint on attributes such as battery platform, brand, warranty, and pack size. Brand premium quantified against private label, and the threshold where private label becomes the default.
Channel Price Dynamics
Price expectations by channel: DIY superstore, specialist retailer, online, trade counter. The same roller set carries different acceptable prices in each, and channel mix is shifting online.
Promotional Response
Discount and bundle impact on volume by audience and channel. Whether promotions recruit new buyers or just reprice existing ones.
Subsectors Covered
Subsector
Paint
Trade loyalty and decorator brand habits sit alongside price-led DIY purchasing. Private label pressure differs sharply by country.
Subsector
Hand & Power Tools
Battery platform lock-in changes the pricing question from single product to system commitment. Conjoint on platform, brand, and warranty.
Subsector
Flooring
LVT growth and sustainability claims create premium opportunities, but online specification makes prices instantly comparable.
Subsector
Bathroom Products
A decision triangle of homeowner, installer, and sometimes architect means the price judge is not always the payer.
Subsector
Kitchen Products
High-consideration purchase where retail, installer, and designer influence all touch the price decision.
Subsector
Outdoor & Gardening
Seasonal demand and the split between garden centres and DIY superstores shape promotion economics.
Subsector
Decorative Sundries
Low-ticket, high-frequency items, brushes, rollers, fillers, tape, where trade buyers are acutely price-aware per unit.
Note: This is a portion of the subsectors and product categories we cover within home improvement research.
How Home Improvement Pricing Research Works - Example Project
Scenario: A flooring manufacturer wants to know whether sustainability claims can carry a price premium, and how large, before committing to a certified product line. Design: A qualitative phase in Germany and France explores how flooring decisions are made, what role sustainability plays in selection criteria, and what premium buyers say they would accept, probed against concrete price anchors. A quantitative phase then prices 200 to 300 consumers per country online alongside trade professionals per country by phone, testing the claims that survived the qualitative phase at realistic shelf prices. Output: The sustainability premium in euros per claim, the conditions under which it holds, where it evaporates at the shelf, and a direct comparison of the consumer corridor against the trade corridor so the client can price each channel correctly. Note: This is an example of a typical project design, not a fixed process. Pricing a power tool range across battery platforms looks different.
Target Audiences
Note: Audience mix is tailored to each project. This is a portion of the audiences we cover.
DIY Consumers & Homeowners [CAWI]
Screened for category purchase in the past 12 to 24 months so price answers come from real buyers, not hypothetical shoppers.
Professional Painters & Decorators [CATI]
Weekly buyers on trade pricing, the audience where paint margins are won or lost.
Handymen & General Contractors [CATI]
Buy across categories and price-compare across channels.
Kitchen & Bathroom Fitters [CATI]
High brand awareness, strong wholesaler ties, and a distinct price logic from consumers buying the same products.
Interior Designers [IDI / video]
Influence premium acceptance without paying themselves.
DIY & Specialist Retailers [IDI / CATI]
Their ranging and margin requirements define your feasible shelf price.
Our Advantage
We price the DIY consumer online and the trade professional by phone in the same study, on the same products, and show you both corridors side by side. A generalist agency prices the consumer panel and assumes the trade follows. It does not, and the margin error lands on you.
Our four home improvement monitors, covering the overall market, kitchens, bathrooms, and professional painters, give us standing category and channel context, so your price findings are read against real market structure rather than interpreted cold.
We also know where premiums live in this sector. We have measured what sustainability claims are worth in flooring, how battery platforms lock in tool pricing, and where private label flips the default. That pattern knowledge sharpens both the study design and the recommendation you take to your pricing committee.
Project Examples
A flooring manufacturer explored selection criteria and willingness to pay for sustainability claims, identifying which claims supported a real premium and where price reverted to baseline.
DE, FR
A wood care manufacturer ran a segment study covering size, channels, pricing positions, and satisfaction drivers. The pricing layer mapped current price ranges by channel and identified premium positioning opportunities.
UK, DE
A paving manufacturer ran 45 hands-on interviews testing tile concepts before production investment, producing winning concepts together with pricing guidance and marketing messages.
FR, DE, NL, UK
A tool manufacturer quantified purchasing criteria among professionals and DIY consumers across seven countries, measuring how price ranked against brand, platform, and performance for each audience separately.
DK, FR, DE, IT, PL, ES, SE
Deliverables
- Separate DIY and trade price corridors per product and country, reported side by side
- Gabor-Granger demand curves at candidate shelf prices with revenue-optimal points marked
- Premium analysis quantifying what sustainability, brand, or feature claims add in euros
- Conjoint utilities and brand-vs-private-label premium thresholds, with simulator where briefed
- Channel price expectation tables: DIY superstore, specialist, online, trade counter
- Promotion response assessment separating volume gain from margin giveaway
- Raw data file (SPSS or Excel) with full cross-tabulation capability
- Executive summary deck plus an insights-to-action workshop on request
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Do you price consumers and trade professionals in the same study?
Yes, and in this sector you usually need both. Consumers respond online, trade professionals by phone, simultaneously, into one dataset with directly comparable corridors.
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Can you combine Van Westendorp with conjoint?
Yes. Van Westendorp establishes the acceptable corridor, conjoint then quantifies feature, claim, and brand trade-offs within it, including the brand premium against private label.
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What samples do we need?
Typically 200 to 300 consumers per country online and 75 to 100 trade professionals per trade type per country by phone. Conjoint designs may need more consumer completes per country depending on attributes and levels.
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How do you keep online consumer price data clean?
Category purchase screening, completion-time thresholds, attention and consistency checks, and filtering that identifies low-quality or AI-assisted respondents. A price corridor built on a dirty panel is worse than no corridor.
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Can you measure whether a sustainability claim carries a premium?
Yes, in euros. We have done exactly this in flooring, testing which claims hold a premium at realistic price anchors and which collapse at the shelf.
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Can you run this across multiple countries simultaneously?
Yes, with one harmonised design and native-language fieldwork. Expect 10 to 16 weeks for five to eight markets, and expect meaningfully different corridors by country and channel.
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When in the launch process should pricing research happen?
Before price lists are printed and retailer negotiations start. Ideally alongside concept or packaging validation, so price and proposition are tested together rather than priced after the fact.
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