INDUSTRY COMMENT: BHETA INNOVATION:
THE FUTURE IS WHAT THE CONSUMER THINKS
A viewpoint from Will Jones, Chief Operating Officer of BHETA - the leading UK Trade Association for manufacturers, importers, and distributors who operate in the home improvement and garden sectors.
T
his month, when we celebrate the best new products in the home improvement and garden market, courtesy of the DIY
Week Awards, it’s a good time to reflect on how innovation has driven success in the DIY sector – and how ultimately, it’s what the consumer thinks that drives that innovation. It’s also time to acknowledge that while some of the current drivers of innovation – environmental concerns, legislative change for example - may seem like pressures, they themselves are reactions to current consumer thinking. We need to look at how to ensure they become opportunities not threats.
Even the term ‘do-it-yourself’ came into use because of consumer pressure. Emerging in the 1950s, it referred to the emergence of people undertaking home improvement, small craft, and construction projects as cost-saving measures. Add to this the recreational aspect and DIY quickly became a social concept with people sharing ideas, techniques, and finished projects. Job insecurity breeding self-reliance and creating a hobby. Within a decade, the media was onto the trend with books, videos, and TV shows about DIY.
Great results – easily and quickly
Given these roots, the first drivers for DIY innovation are already clear: 1. How to get a professional or near perfect finish, doing it yourself? DIY innovation relied on seeing how the professional tradesperson got results and adapting both the tools and the ‘tricks of the trade’ to be usable by the non-time-served enthusiast. Decorating tools are a classic example with bristle, handle, sleeve, and frame design – both shape and materials - all driven by the need to enable an amateur to imitate professional techniques successfully.
2. Then, how to get professional 28 DIY WEEK MAY 2023 results more easily?
3. Then, how the right result with ease could be achieved more quickly? As the virtues of DIY as a popular hobby ebbed away post the Changing Rooms era, however, NPD strategy had to add ease, speed, and convenience to professional results. With DIY itself no longer ‘on trend’ the drivers of changed. Apart from those diehard DIY enthusiasts who remained, ‘do it yourself’ became a less appealing job, which consumers undertook reluctantly to save on the cost of ‘do it for me’ home improvement. ‘Easy’ and ‘quick’ became essential in terms of evolving point of difference.
The new DIYer
The step-change was lockdown – and renewed enthusiasm for DIY and gardening as pastimes for consumers who had never tried such activities before. There was a resulting proliferation of ‘starter kits’ and gadgets, multi-use tools and interchangeable power packs gained popularity as DIY newbies demanded instant solutions. This was quickly followed however by education and trading up – a new consumer consciousness of good, better, best – as DIY skills and ambitions increased.
Again, consumer media embraced the direction of travel and the dominance of digital enabled much faster growth than previously. With YouTube and Instagram enabling enthusiasts to share creations and educate fellow DIYers, the growth
of independent online DIY experts - householders who blogged about their experiences became obvious. The DIY influencer was born.
Sustainability Arrive at today, and NPD is grappling with an even bigger driver – consumer awareness of sustainability. Plus, the cost of living. Materials, processing intensity (energy consumption), transportation. Replacing single use plastic, recycling waste into power, reconfiguring packaging, making SKUs smaller to enable reduced numbers of journeys. It’s a legislative challenge, but for suppliers who appreciate the consumer trends behind concepts such as Extended Producer Responsibility, it is also an opportunity for innovation and increased sales.
One such supplier is tool manufacturer Trend UK and Managing Director, Chris Carter explains: “Because of EPR, we accelerated a multi-department project to minimise the volume of packaging we use, reduce plastic, minimise waste and move to easily recycled materials. While the benefits in reduced tax, reduced EPR charges in 2024 and reduced shipping costs will easily pay back the project costs, the resulting innovations have already made us more attractive both to customers and consumers.”
Supply chain
Chris makes another interesting point about current innovation. It needs to enable sustainability throughout the supply chain. At this year’s DIY Week Awards the winner of the Garden Care category was Southern Trident with its Coco & Coir Compost. The product comes in a compressed block packed in a re-sealable ‘expanding’ bag and the consumer just adds water. Quite apart from the obvious green credentials of the peat-free formula, this is a product that reduces environmental impact throughout the supply chain – minimising packaging, transportation, and waste and making display, purchase and use easy. It’s not only a clever, on trend idea, but a good story for customers and consumers, addressing both aspirations and concerns.
Innovation has and always will be key, and listening to what consumers want is crucial.
when we might wish the task was easier, new product development in line with consumer trends is the only way forward.
For more information about BHETA advice and services, contact the BHETA Member Services team on 0121 237 1130 or visit the BHETA website
www.bheta.co.uk.
www.diyweek.net Even
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