Study of the digital and physical experience in bricolage and DIY Retailers

According to a study by Prometeia, DIY centres brought in a turnover of more than four and a half billion euros in 2018, with a growth of 0.4% in 2019. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, Italians were forced to spend more time at home and thus rethink their living spaces, dividing them between private life and work, all now carried out under the same roof. Forced smart working has boosted the sales of DIY giants, so much so that the large-scale DIY sector has achieved an overall growth in sales of 43.5%, according to Gfk.¹ 

Companies in the sector have noted this: at the beginning of 2021, Leroy Merlin's e-store was already recording 50 million unique visitors per month (+70% compared to 2019) and 7 million active customers (+100%).

Physical stores have also experienced significant growth in recent years. According to the 2019 GDS (large-scale retailer) Report, outlets increased by 4.1% in that year, up from 2.5% the previous year.

In this context, we decided to analyse the state of eCommerce digitalisation for the five main players in the large-scale retail sector. Calton, a Customer Experience and Review Management startup that collects and analyses feedback and reviews, then analysed the Google reviews that Italian consumers left for the physical stores of these five brands. Once the feedback on the outlets had been analysed, the main issues that had led to a negative opinion from users were identified.

The 5 (+2) metrics

During the week of 20 to 24 September 2021, our community tried to complete a purchase on the websites of five large-scale retailers specialising in construction and tools, counting the number of clicks needed to achieve the goal.

The five chains were: Bricoman, Brico OK, Bricocenter, Leroy Merlin and OBI.

The number of clicks is by no means a complete metric to measure the usability (much less the User Experience) of a site. For this reason, the click count was combined with questionnaires intended to evaluate

• satisfaction
• usability
• design
• information capacity (hereinafter Informativity)
• reliability

Curious about the results?

References:

¹ FirstOnline

² You Trade Web