Stat watch: Pro shopping behavior

When pro customers were asked to point to the most important factors for shopping for hardware, home improvement and building materials, “Price” came out on top.

No surprise there. But what about “quality,” “location,” “selection,” and “availability?”

The Farnsworth Group study on “Channel Shopping Behavior Among DIYers and Professionals” presents responses from builders, remodelers and tradesmen. It further compared responses in 2015 to 2013.

Specifically, pros were asked for the 3 most important factors when shopping. As the chart shows, the factor of “availability” has shown the biggest swing over the time period.

Among the three types of pros, Remodeler’s were slightly less sensitive to price than builders or tradesmen. Here is the tally of the type of pro that most frequently  cited each factor among the three most important factors to shopping.

In 2015:

• Price: Builder, tradesmen (both at 77%)

• Quality: Builder (39%)

• Location: Tradesmen (38%)

• Selection: Tradesmen (30%)

• Availability: Remodeler (26%)

In 2013:

• Price: Builder (91%)

• Quality: Remodeler (37%)

• Location: Tradesmen (51%)

• Selection: Builder (27%)

• Availability Tradesman (53%)