Our Home & Housewares Practice

Home and Housewares: How to deal with a growing and fragmenting market

The good news, if you sell home and housewares, is that Americans are spending more than ever on where they live . Revenues in the category are growing faster than the economy as whole: Up 52% in the last eight years. In fact, remodeling expenditures alone now total $233 billion annually, and account for more than 2% of the US economy.

The bad news is the market is both rapidly changing and segmenting.

Three quick examples make the point.

In today’s home improvement market, its not enough to provide good products, you have to provide complete home solutions. Customers want you to help them install the products they purchase. They want you to provide them with all the inspiration, information and support they need to complete their project.
Speaking of D-I-Y, while it is old news to say that women are a key factor in the segment, what may surprise you is that single women bought 1/5 of all homes in 2005 and 38% have installed a light fixture.
Finally, people want to get more out of their homes and use more of their space for specific activities. They want to create computer dens, home entertainment areas, outdoor refuges, pet corners etc. That means you must provide products that allow them to customize their space to their lifestyles.

These trends raise a host of questions: Should you try to be all things to all people? If not, which customers are worth going after? Which ones can you safely ignore? Can you own any of these spaces and be recognized for your efforts?

Markitecture believes that success in the home and housewares category comes only from a) dedicating the time and effort to developing a sophisticated process for understanding your most profitable customers and having done that, b) targeting those customers precisely with new and/or repositioned offerings.