The home improvement and home improvement market, which was growing last year, has felt the impact of the crisis: foot traffic in stores has been declining sharply since April. One of the main reasons is the decline in activity in the real estate market

Photo: TASS

Traffic is plummeting

The crisis has reached home improvement and repair stores - the so-called DIY chains (stands for do it yourself). The flow of visitors to DIY stores began to decline sharply from the end of March this year, according to data from the Russian consulting company Watcom provided to RBC. In the week of March 30, traffic dropped 23.3% (the company measures traffic on a weekly basis) compared to the same period last year. According to the most recent data, in the first half of June the drop in traffic was almost 25%. (details in graph)

In 2014, the situation on the DIY market was much better. Average traffic to stores last year increased 2.2% compared to 2013, according to Watcom. “Unlike retailers from other segments of the consumer market - clothing, technology and even food retail - consumers did not abruptly leave household goods and repair networks,” notes Watcom managing partner Maria Vakatova.

At the end of 2014 and in the first quarter of 2015, sales in DIY chains were supported by consumers who purchased goods for future use, notes Vakatova.

In 2014, according to INFOLine-Analytics, the largest DIY chains introduced a five-year record amount of retail space - 300 thousand square meters. m. The leaders in terms of retail space growth were Leroy Merlin, Tvoy Dom and OBI. The volume of the DIY market last year grew by 9%, to 1.54 trillion rubles.

The “depressive situation” will drag on

The drop in the flow of RBC buyers was confirmed by market participants. The head of the marketing department of Leroy Merlin, Dmitry Dmitriev, told RBC that in the first quarter of this year, the chain noted an increase in customers and sales in comparable areas (that is, in stores that had been operating for more than a year at that time). Since April, these figures began to decline. According to Dmitriev, consumers have begun to save money in recent months by purchasing much more goods under the chain's own brand (these goods are traditionally cheaper than products from well-known brands). However, overall sales of Leroy Merlin continue to grow, Dmitriev clarifies, thanks to the active expansion of the network.

Maria Evnevich, a member of the board of directors of the St. Petersburg company Maxidom (fifth place in the 2013 rating of DIY networks in Russia by INFOLine-Analysts), also confirmed the beginning of a decline in traffic since April 2015. Thus, in June, compared to the same period last year, the drop in customer flow in St. Petersburg stores was about 8%, revenue dropped by 5%, Evnevich notes.

RBC Pro development program Leadership: the first skill New leadership: how to manage a business in conditions of uncertainty The power of the environment: how a leader can grow together with the team Dictator's dictionary: what 6 phrases will betray an authoritarian manager Psychology in business: 6 types of destructive leadership A leader from whom people will not leave: how to earn the loyalty of subordinates Growing the pie. How great companies achieve their goals and make profits

According to the observations of the co-owner of the Metrica company (sixth place in the top DIY networks in Russia in 2013 by INFOLine-Analysts) Evgeniy Lebedev, the DIY market has dropped 10-15% since the beginning of the year compared to the same period last year. “But the demand for different product categories is very different,” he said. — Those positions that can be classified as functional, for example glue, are stable. Consumers are refusing or postponing purchases mainly of home decor products.”

Now Russians, despite the increase in “consumer confidence” in April-June, are still in saving mode, Sberbank CIB analysts noted at the end of June in the “Ivanov Consumer Index” study. About 5% of Russians began to spend more on electronics and clothing, but consumers have postponed all major purchases for now.

“Naturally, in conditions of savings and lack of money, people are not inclined to repair and renovate their homes,” explains Maria Evnevich from Maxidom. — Activity in the real estate market is falling: accordingly, people who today did not buy an apartment in a building under construction will not make repairs in a year. For us, this means that we can’t expect a quick way out of the depressive situation.”

In the first half of the year, housing sales in Moscow decreased by about one and a half times, states Vladimir Bogdanyuk, head of the analytical and consulting center Est-a-Tet. He believes that DIY chains will face an even more serious decline in sales over the coming year: after a drop in demand for apartments, it takes six months to a year before this situation is directly reflected in purchases of home goods and repairs.

General Director of INFOLine-Analytics Mikhail Burmistrov believes that retailers will be forced to deal with falling sales by reducing prices. As a result, at the end of 2015, the DIY market will decline for the first time since the 2008-2009 crisis, he predicts. The fall, according to Burmistrov's estimates, could be 5%.

The crisis has reached the home goods and repair market