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Market Exploration Research for Home Improvement
Home improvement isn't one market. A paint brand exploring the professional decorator segment in Germany needs different research from a power tools company assessing DIY consumer trends in the UK. We cover both - DIY consumers reached online, trade professionals reached by phone across paint, flooring, bathroom, tools, kitchen, outdoor & gardening, and decorative sundries. Whether you're entering a new category, assessing a new country, or trying to understand why your product works in one channel and struggles in another, we give you the full picture of how this market actually moves.
30+
years exclusive home improvement focus
EU Monitor
European Home Improvement Monitor — ongoing syndicated benchmark
DIY + Trade
Consumer (CAWI) and professional (CATI) audiences in one integrated study
Categories
Paint, flooring, bathroom, tools, kitchen, outdoor & gardening, sundries
What We Measure
A complete view of the home improvement market, from category structure and brand competition to channel dynamics, consumer decision-making, and trade professional behavior. Every layer of the value chain covered, with cross-cuts available by country, channel, and audience.
Examples
Category & Product Landscape
Current market structure, key players, brand share by category and channel, purchase volumes and frequency by segment, new product testing, and unmet consumer needs.
Consumer & Professional Decision Dynamics
What triggers a homeowner to start a project, the weight of price vs brand vs features vs packaging, the role of retailer and trade recommendation, and how online research influences offline purchase and vice versa.
Channel & Distribution Dynamics
Channel usage by DIY consumers vs trade professionals by country, channel shift trends (online vs DIY superstores), and private label vs name brand dynamics.
Category Opportunity Assessment
White space where consumer and professional needs are unmet, willingness to pay for added services like design and installation, category adjacency opportunities, and emerging trends in sustainability and smart home integration.
Competitive Landscape
Brand health funnel (aided and unaided) by category, channel and country, competitor strengths and weaknesses as perceived by consumers and professionals, and price positioning relative to competitors.
Home Improvement Subsectors Covered
Subsector
Paint
Decorative and functional paints across DIY consumers and professional decorators. Category extension, trade professional brand loyalty, channel dynamics.
Subsector
Flooring
Product category adoption (LVT growth, solid wood preferences), selection criteria, and online specification behavior.
Subsector
Bathroom Products
High consumer involvement, often a professional installation decision. Decision-making triangle: homeowner, architect, installer.
Subsector
Hand & Power Tools
Consumer DIY and professional trade segments. Category entry triggers, brand loyalty, and retail environment influence.
Subsector
Outdoor & Gardening
Seasonal and weather-driven. Category size, consumer motivation profiles, garden centers vs DIY superstores.
Subsector
Kitchen Products
High-consideration purchase with strong interplay between retail, installer, and interior designer influence.
Subsector
Decorative Sundries
Brushes, rollers, fillers, tape, and preparation products.
Note: This is a portion of the subsectors and product categories we cover within home improvement research.
What we Measure
How Home Improvement Market Exploration Works
Example Project
Scenario: A wallpaper manufacturer wants to understand the global wallpaper market — how it is structured by country, which segments are growing, and what role digital printing and sustainable materials play.
Design: CAWI survey with 200 homeowners per country across eight markets (BE, FR, DE, IT, KR, SE, TR, UK) covering category penetration, purchase triggers, selection criteria, and brand usage — combined with qualitative IDIs with interior designers and retail buyers.
Output: An eight-country market profile showing category maturity, growth drivers, competitive dynamics, and segment-level opportunity — with specific product positioning recommendations by market.
Note: This is an example of a typical project design, not a fixed process.
Target Audiences for Market Exploration Research in Home Improvement
Note: Audience mix is tailored to each project.
DIY Consumers & Homeowners [CAWI]
Core audience for most home improvement category exploration studies. Screened for relevant category activity in past 12–24 months.
Professional Decorators & Painters [CATI]
Critical B2B audience for paint, sundries, and decorating products.
Handymen & General Contractors [CATI]
Kitchen & Bathroom Fitters [CATI]
Specialist trade professionals with high brand awareness and strong wholesaler relationships.
Interior Designers [IDI]
A specification influence rather than a direct buyer in most categories.
DIY & Specialist Retailers [IDI / CATI]
Shape ranging decisions that determine which brands consumers encounter.
Our Advantage
Why Market Exploration Research for Home Improvement?
Home improvement spans two fundamentally different research audiences — the DIY consumer and the professional decorator. Most agencies pick one; we cover both, combining CAWI consumer surveys with CATI professional surveys in the same study. Thirty years in home improvement research means we know the categories where brand loyalty is entrenched and those where purchase is entirely price-driven at point of shelf selection. Our European Home Improvement Monitor gives us standing benchmark data on key categories, consumer behaviors, and brand dynamics — so you know which findings are surprising and which reflect established category norms.
Project Examples
Sustainability and the Price Premium
A flooring manufacturer wanted to understand whether sustainability claims affect product choice. CAWI with 300 consumers and CATI with 100 flooring fitters per country. Sustainability labeling drove a price premium in Germany but had negligible effect in France.
DE, FR
Market Volumes by Category and Channel
A painting tools manufacturer needed market volumes by product category and channel. Combined CAWI consumer surveys with CATI interviews with professional decorators and trade merchants.
UK, DE, FR
Homeowner Feature Preferences
A smart thermostat manufacturer needed to understand homeowner and tenant feature preferences. CAWI with 300 homeowners per country.
DE, FR, TR
Deliverables
What You Receive
Actionable Insights, Not Just Data
Deliverables are always tailored to the needs of our customer. Together we choose the form in which the insights can make the most impact. This can be:
- Structured market exploration report (PowerPoint deck + supporting data appendix)
- Workshops for your team to get from insights to an action plan
- Online dashboards in Power-BI or Forsta Vis
- Consumer and professional behavior profiles
- Category opportunity map: where unmet needs exist, sized and prioritized by market
- Channel analysis: current channel usage by audience segment and country, with trend direction
- Raw data file (SPSS or Excel cross-tabs)
- Executive summary deck (5–8 slides) for board or leadership team
Multi-Country Capability
Home improvement isn't one pan-European market. Consumer attitudes to DIY, the weight of the professional trade channel, the influence of retail chains vs independent merchants, and online channel growth all vary by country. We run multi-country studies with harmonized methodology across consumer (CAWI) and professional (CATI) audiences simultaneously, covering 20+ countries including markets outside Europe where the structural relationship between DIY and professional trade differs significantly from Western European norms.
Key European Markets
Americas
Asia-Pacific & Middle East
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We sell to both consumers and professional trade. Can a single study cover both?
Yes. The most common design pairs CAWI with consumers and CATI with trade professionals simultaneously, delivering one integrated dataset.
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How do you reach trade professionals like painters and flooring fitters?
We recruit by phone (CATI), screening on the call to verify active trade status and relevant category experience.
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What sample sizes do you use?
Consumer (CAWI): 200–300 respondents per country. Trade professional (CATI): 75–100 per country per trade type.
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Can you run the study across multiple European countries simultaneously?
Yes — consumer CAWI and professional CATI in parallel across 5–10 European markets, one harmonized dataset.
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At what stage should we run market exploration?
Market exploration is exactly the right study when you’re assessing a category, country, or channel decision. It tells you whether the opportunity is real, who the key players are, what distribution looks like, and what consumers and professionals currently use and why.
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How long does a home improvement study typically take?
Single-country with CAWI + CATI + qualitative IDI: 8–12 weeks. Multi-country across 5–8 markets: 12–16 weeks.
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Can you tell us how our category compares to European benchmarks?
Yes. Our European Home Improvement Monitor holds benchmark data across European markets, and we contextualize your bespoke findings within those benchmarks.
Excellence trough expertise
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PHONE
+31 10 2066900ADDRESS
Max Euwelaan 51
3062 MA Rotterdam