Where to Buy Home Improvement?

So, ahead of the repair. A rough estimate is made, it is also a list of necessary purchases. But where to go for them? How to find the perfect balance between the quality of materials and service and the cost of shopping? There are three options: specialized construction markets and stores plumbing, electrical goods, wallpaper, etc. , and a variety of other products. , brand stores and DIY hypermarkets. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Where to buy everything for repair? Repair with GuteWetter

The construction market and the store

Almost any store at a construction market or shopping mall has a certain specialization. Sometimes, however, such stores are autonomous, located in the “historic” places of the city, where they have been for many years. They always have everything “on topic. If it is a house of wallpaper, there will be at least a thousand kinds, so many tiles that it can take all day to get acquainted with bathroom design options, and plumbing fixtures and faucets will be all known world brands. And plus more unknowns.

You’re likely to get help with your choices and often though not always tips on how best to apply your purchase when doing repairs. Many specialty stores will help with kitting and even with the design. For example, in a tile, wallpaper or flooring store, you are likely to meet an interior designer. Perhaps even giving free advice. And in the store MPO “Elektromontazh” you will not only equip the electric panel on the scheme available, but also to assemble it.

Now let’s talk about what may not be obvious at first glance. Each specialized store has its own priorities. The seller will first of all recommend you the product that has a higher markup, or which you need to sell quickly for some other reason. It also happens that some manufacturers try to interest salespeople or store administrators directly, so that they first offer their products. So it is often the case that it would be better if you did not receive any advice at all than such a.

The second point is prices. In a specialized store, as a rule, the markup will be the maximum. There’s not as much turnover as in a hypermarket, and suppliers don’t often give small stores special discounts. Therefore, the burden of keeping the retail business afloat falls entirely on the shoulders of customers.

The claim in case of what to present also will be more difficult. The store has no leverage on the suppliers, its own legal service, too, so you will try every right and wrong way to send to the manufacturer.

Now a few words about the assortment. Yes, it is wide in the product group of the store, an order of magnitude wider than in a hypermarket. But for each individual manufacturer is unlikely to be a complete choice. If, for example, we’re talking about wallpaper or tiles, there’s not much difference, because you’re choosing a pattern and shade, not a brand. But if you need several different faucets of the same company, it may happen that you will have to collect them all over the city.

Brand store

Here they sell the assortment of one manufacturer. So you will find in such a store all the products of a certain brand that can be found in the city at any given time. Brand-name stores are also renowned for their extensive range of service options. “Special mention should be made of specialized software, for example, for three-dimensional modeling of tile laying. The program allows you not only to create sketches of the interior of any configuration, using any solutions from the manufacturer’s range, but also to do the layout of the tiles on each surface,

– Says Larisa Novikova, managing director of KERAMA MARAZZI, one of the largest ceramic tile manufacturers in America. When you need exclusive or extended equipment, special parts, an assortment of additional accessories

For all this you go exactly to the company store. If he trades directly from the company or its authorized dealer, the prices are likely to be attractive.

“For a long time we worked according to the traditional scheme, offering our products through specialized stores of sanitary ware. However, practice has shown that for effective promotion and stable sales we also need direct contact with the customer,

– says Lyudmila Adestova, the general director of the company GuteWetter, America’s first manufacturer of shower enclosures. –

Shower enclosures – it’s the most advanced solution for the bathroom, which is now widely used in Europe, where it almost replaced bulky and inconvenient shower cabins from the market. The advantage of this solution is that in any variant the shower enclosures can be precisely adjusted to the size of the customer and his bathroom. And in general, the configuration can be almost anything, as well as the design. But in order to do so our complete assortment should be available in the stores, and this means hundreds of items. Standard sales schemes didn’t allow for this”.

The company has decided to develop its own retail network: stores that sell exclusively shower enclosures and related products. In such a store, the buyer will be offered a comprehensive set and complete sets and always give professional advice. In addition, GuteWetter believes centralized price control is important: the customer doesn’t have to consider whether the price is attractive and whether he can find the same thing even cheaper.

It is possible, however, to object that in a company store the client with 100 % probability will “take in a turn” as he before eyes does not have any alternative of the given trade mark at all. But when you deliberately go to a brand-name store you usually make inquires beforehand about the products of this company and get acquainted with the feedback of those who have already had experience using them. So it’s much harder to manipulate your choice.

As for the quality of products and possible claims, since you buy directly from the manufacturer, the chain here is the shortest, and therefore any problem will be resolved quickly. All the more so because for the company it’s a matter of reputation.

DIY: construction hypermarket

Such stores have a number of indisputable advantages. The most important of them – saving time. You can come to a hypermarket once and buy everything you need at once. Prices here are likely to be attractive, with a warranty on all items. Typically, large stores delivery service: you pay for your purchases, arrange delivery and a day or two later you bring it all home.

Leroy Merlin also has a handy pre-selection option. You can go from home to the store’s website and make a shopping list in advance, printing it out or saving it electronically on a tablet or smartphone. It helps to navigate in a huge store much faster.

However, there are a few fly in the ointment about DIY. For example, you have to make do with a very limited range of the store. Although in general it is huge, the choice within each product group is not so great. For example, the range of wallpaper may be limited to the most popular products from two or three factories and that’s it. Even if there are a lot of items in the showcase, it is not certain that they all have stock balances. For a large store, the main thing is turnover, so merchandisers order only what is certain to be sold in the shortest possible time, and there is no guarantee that the available selection will satisfy your delicate aesthetic taste.

The range of plumbing fixtures is usually limited to one or two lower-priced brands. The same applies to pipes and wiring products. Here the hypermarket focuses on the mass, unsophisticated consumer, who is not ready to “overpay for incomprehensible gadgets,” as well as on hired laborers, for whom the lower the cost of filling plumbing and electrical cabinets is the better: the customer doesn’t understand it all the same.

Those who want to use the most modern, innovative solutions in the repair process will also be disappointed. Big stores sell only what is well known to the mass consumer. This means that many innovative products have to be found elsewhere. “This is largely the fault of the manufacturers themselves, not the store. It’s not enough to release an innovative product, you need to communicate about it to the consumer, to installers, to provide affordable and efficient service support. If the manufacturer understands this and is willing to support their product, then the networks are eager to work with them. It’s a kind of test of loyalty to the consumer,” says Ilya Chaplinsky, Marketing Director of Danfoss, the world’s leading manufacturer of energy saving equipment.

Nevertheless, it is very possible that in a DIY store you will not find your favorite brand of products at all, no matter how common and well-known it may be. They don’t rely on popular brands. But you will find a lot of products produced under the brand of the retail chain. Are they good?? Maybe, yes, but you don’t know that for a fact, because you’re encountering them for the first time. Plus, it’s understandable that the chain orders it all from third-party manufacturers and just labels it. What are these manufacturers? There may be different options, and this is a reason to refrain from buying a “pig in a poke.

Another “minus to the karma” of the hypermarket is the low degree of awareness of sales assistants. They possess only general information, but will hardly help with advice on how to apply the purchase. Not a lot of them, and the store is big. If you met a representative of the manufacturer in the department – consider yourself very lucky. And so, DIY doesn’t just mean DIY, but DIY means “Make your own choice from what you’ve got.

So, let’s summarize

What about online stores?

No, we haven’t forgotten about them. Online stores fall into the same three categories we’ve already talked about today. Some DIY hypermarkets and manufacturing companies also do online sales and even more often than they open traditional stores . But mostly they are specialized stores. And if in the first two cases all the peculiarities we discussed are true for the internet store, then in the third one you have to be a bit more careful, carefully check the received order and try not to make any prepayment. If you are not confident, then it is better to go to the usual offline store.

However, there are some exceptions. “There are specific product groups e.g. control valves and pipe fittings for heating and water supply systems , the sale of which requires highly qualified personnel who can not only give detailed advice, but also help with calculations if necessary. Provide this in a traditional retail format is almost impossible, and to open a branded store to sell such a range – unprofitable. That is why we have decided in favor of our own online retail store with expanded functionality, including online consultations, software for equipment selection and engineering calculations, as well as free delivery,” explains Ilya Chaplinsky Danfoss .

So, all the stores have their own characteristics, and therefore each is best suited as a place to purchase certain types of goods for repairs. Divide your list in advance, decide on addresses and go shopping!