OPINION Different rules for DIY

Lessons from the US, UK and Australia: why retail media in home improvement is not the same

DIY is very different from grocery when it comes to Retail Media Networks. You don’t shop for a drill every week. You buy it because the shelf isn’t going to put itself up. Shoppers work out the task they need to complete—fixing, renovating, decorating or even planting flowers in spring and then think about product or category to solve that problem. 

You could argue that Retail Media in DIY / home improvement is less about promoting products and more about helping consumers make choices about the right category and then product to suit their needs. 

Here are nine unique differences in DIY from grocery shopping:

1. Unique Shopper Missions: Consumers are typically driven by specific project needs, such as purchasing white paint for a kitchen renovation or a drill for shelf installation.
2. Frequency Variations: Consumer purchase frequency is generally lower than in grocery retail, though trade professionals may purchase regularly.
3. Distinct Supplier Profiles: Suppliers in DIY requirements vary significantly to grocery based on price points, purchase frequency, and product category drivers.
4. Brand power: there are a few powerful brand that are recogniseable, but many products have zero or no brand power.
5. Trade Counter: Tradespeople buying for their customers are part and parcel of most DIY/Home improvement retailers – which gives rise to a real B2B opportunity.
6. Marketplace Dynamics: DIY retailers often leverage marketplaces to monetise the ‘long tail’ of suppliers, presenting opportunities for Retail Media revenue generation.
7. Suppliers have different goals for different retail partners: a supplier of garden tools or paint will have different strategies for its range in a DIY retailer compared to how it might see in a mass merchandiser. The full catalogue of products might be available in the DIY store, but only 10 best sellers in the mass merchandiser.
8. Measures of success are different: When a brand is testing a new product in a DIY environment, measures such as ROI and ROAS will be lower than in a channel where they’re only promoting top sellers. The different goals by channel change what should be considered ‘successful’ performance
9. Own label brands are also in growing in importance: Retailers are building their own ranges, for example, B&Q’s Erbauer, and these are competing head-on with traditional suppliers.

DIY retail media approaches

There are plenty of DIY / improvement retailers across the world. Three of the biggest are in Australia, US and the UK, and each is taking a different approach to the challenge:

• Bunnings in Australia is using its strong brand and in-store presence to build Hammer Media with in-house control.
• Home Depot in the US is building around the supplier—investing in proprietary tech and a unified interface to improve the advertiser experience.
• Kingfisher in the UK is leveraging marketplaces and digital expansion to scale Retail Media as part of a broader transformation.

Bunnings’ Hammer Time

Bunnings are one of the most famous brands in Australia and are part of Wesfarmers – an Australian conglomerate with revenues of A$43.5 billion. Bunnings is the group’s stand out division, with revenues of around AU$20bn.Wesfarmers is also one of the largest employers in Australia, with 100k+ employees. Wesfamers also run the KMart, Office works and Target brands in Australia. 

Wesfarmer also own a brand called ‘OneDigital’ which brings together the Group’s digitally native businesses, with a membership programme, creating a huge set of 1st party data. 

Bunnings has launched its own media network: Hammer Media and claim to be offering ‘brands, both retail and trade, connections with Bunnings customers at each step of the shopping journey.’ 

Hammer Media is focussing on its omnichannel approach. Suppliers have access to over 14 million monthly website visitors, a national in-store footprint, social followers, and the Bunnings Warehouse magazine. 300 digital screens have been installed across 150 stores, giving brands a chance to show off product use cases and relevance at the point of sale.

Home Depot: designing for the supplier

In the US, Home Depot’s Orange Apron Media has just been relaunched. Ther focus is on making life easier for suppliers – an often-overlooked stakeholder in Retail Media Networks.

Home Depot’s Retail Media business started in 2018 as a social media retargeting pilot, and was relaunched in 2024 as Orange Apron Media with a integrated both onsite and offsite offering to deliver a full-funnel proposition. Orange Apron Media retail recently launched a new comprehensive self-service advertising platform called Orange Access.

Orange Apron Media went through a high change in its technology approach and inhoused much of its technology stack, unlike many other Retail Media Networks. As part of this overhaul, Home Depot also emphasise the relationship with the supplier and how they interact with their advertising platform.

The retailer worked with Vantage to create a unified interface that allows advertisers to manage both onsite and offsite advertising campaigns through a single user interface and access advanced insights and real-time reporting.Melanie Babcock, Vice President of Orange Apron Media clearly states that the media business was ‘designed for the service to our suppliers. In a Retail Media landscape increasingly crowded with similar-looking offerings, that focus on the supplier experience may prove to be Home Depot’s most valuable differentiator.’

Kingfisher: scaling across Europe and B2B

Kingfisher plc is an international home improvement company with over 2,000 stores, with over 80,000 employees. They operate in eight countries across Europe under retail banners including Screwfix, B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt, TradePoint and Koçtaş.  

Kingfisher’s digital sales now make up 19% of total sales, with a goal to hit 30%. The growing ecommerce base provides the scale and context for its Retail Media business. 

The company, which logged revenues of £13bn and total ecommerce sales of £2.3bn and B2C and B2B banners in the UK, Ireland, France, Poland, Romania and the Iberian Peninsula, says in its results report that it’s AI and Retail Media initiatives are ‘delivering positive results and we are accelerating their rollout to drive incremental revenue, profit and cash’.

Further, it adds: ‘Our Retail Media offering is rapidly building momentum and is now live in France and at B&Q. Over time, we see the potential for Retail Media revenues to reach up to 3% of the Group’s total e-commerce sales’.

This is being driven by growth in its ecommerce propositions. According to the company: ‘with circa 1 billion customer visits per annum across our e-commerce touchpoints, we believe that many of our suppliers – including leading national and international home improvement brands – could become advertisers. Over time, we see the potential for Retail Media revenues to reach up to 3% of the Group’s total e-commerce sales’. 

In their most recent annual report, Kingfishers were explicit about all of their goals:

• Growing trade customer sales: End of FY 24/25 trade sales penetration (excluding Screwfix) of 17.9%, versus start of year of 13.0%
• Evolving e-commerce proposition: now 19% of total sales with an emphasis on scaling with the marketplace:
• 2.1m SKUs available on diy.com
• £309m GMV from B&Q’s marketplace after <3 years
• Extended assortment at Screwfix to 72k SKUs
• Accelerating Retail Media:
• 500+ vendors engaging on Retail Media
• 2,400+ live campaigns (+167% YoY)
• Delivering >600% return on advertising spend
• 2,400+ live campaigns across all banners
• £100m sales from personalisation & recommendation engines

The Retal Media business already has a substantial Retail Media product suite on offer including sponsored products, sponsored display banners, cross sell sponsored product, sampling, email, paid social and influencer.

If you combined Kingfisher’s ‘ambition for ecommerce to reach 30% sales penetration, one third of which represents high margin marketplace gross sales,this means they are creating the core requirements for a substantial Retail Media business. 

Retail Media That Reflects the Aisle

DIY shopping is about intent and shoppers arrive with specific needs. This why Retail Media in this category must be different to grocery-based retail and has to work harder online, offline and instore. What is the biggest opportunity? Instore: Instore digital screens help show context – how something works, where it fits, what it looks like in action – the perfect channel for showing home improvement in action.