HOME IMPROVEMENT TRACKER

The most complete insights into Home Improvement
consumer trends.

The newly refreshed Numerator Home Improvement Tracker provides quarterly insight into omnichannel consumer buying behavior and promotional activity in select home improvement categories. Powered by Numerator’s panel of over 225,000 shoppers, the tracker provides a high-level view into emerging trends and category metrics for the home improvement industry.

Home Improvement Market Share

Leveraging Numerator TruView, Numerator's market share measurement solution, our newly-added quarterly Home Improvement Market Share data offers insight into market share shifts across retailers overall and by key demographics including region, income and generation.

  • Home Depot captured the highest market share across retailers in June 2023 at 32.7%, a 1ppt increase from the previous month.
  • In June, Lowe’s captured the largest market share in the Southern region (39.9%), while Home Depot won in the West (47.8%).
  • Ace Hardware saw a significant spike in share among Millennials in February (28.7%), before dropping to 16.4% in March as Amazon took over the highest share among this cohort (24.8%)
  • In May, Walmart (10.5%) surpassed Amazon (9%) in capturing high-income shoppers— however, Amazon (12.3%) rose in comparison to Walmart (9.6%) in June.
 
 

Home Improvement Category Insights

Most focus categories are seeing declines across all key metrics so far in 2023 vs 2022, an unsurprising trend given the unprecedented boom the home improvement industry saw over the past two years. Buy rate is the only metric where gains were seen, with hand tools growing slightly within this area.

 

Ecommerce Insights

Through Q2 2023, In-Store shopping still reigns supreme when it comes to household shopping, with more than double the household penetration of Online (91% vs 38%). However Online trips are larger, with nearly double the spend per trip versus In-Store. 

Trip Insights: Home Ownership

Our Home Improvement Tracker trip insights offer a unique view into home ownership status of shoppers making purchases in three select categories: Hand Tools, Outdoor Power Equipment, and Power Tools. Looking at the past 12 months, the majority of consumers making purchases in these categories are homeowners, particularly so for Outdoor Power Equipment.

Promotional Insights

Home Improvement categories of focus have seen mixed promotional support so far this year. YTD promotions in the Hand Tools category are roughly on par compared to 2022, while Cleaning Tools, Major Appliances, OPE and Power Tools are seeing significant increases. At the same time, Kitchen & Bath Fixtures, Lawn & Garden, and Paint Supplies promotions have seen declines.

Survey Insights

Our quarterly Home Improvement Survey dives deeper into the 'why' behind category purchases made in the past three months, and provides a look forward at intentions for future home projects. Key highlights this quarter include:

  • Consumers were most likely to be buying home improvement items for a small DIY project, though this varies when segmenting by category purchased— buyers of Major Appliances and Kitchen & Bath Fixtures, for example, were significantly more likely to be replacing a damaged item.
  • Inflation's impact on buying behavior declined in Q2 2023 versus Q1 2023— 38% of shoppers indicated it did not influence their purchase decision in Q2, versus 34% in Q1.
  • Shoppers are most likely to take on lawn/garden (53%) or small painting (39%) DIY projects in the next 3 months, and their planned purchases match these intentions.

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