Home improvement stores
DIY stores, generally known as home centers in Japan, are all-rounders in the retail sector and resemble hypermarkets in the width of their assortment. Combining the distribution of tools and crafting materials with other home essentials, DIY stores are the places to go for laypersons to buy the necessities for building, modifying, and repairing work around the house. Additionally, home improvement stores play a major role in the pet industry, with pet owners preferring the large-scale retailers to buy food and supplies for their animal companions.The Japanese DIY store landscape is dominated by the presence of chain stores spanning their network throughout the whole country. Even though the store network has been showing an upward trend in recent years, industry leaders supplemented their offline businesses with online stores to profit from the growing consumer spending on the DIY and hobby segment in the e-commerce sector.
DIY activities
Do-it-yourself covers a wide range of activities in Japan and is not limited to repair and maintenance work around the house. Small arts and crafts projects such as sewing, painting, and modifying fashion items are also included in the broader definition of handmade goods. Facilitated by the increased time spent at home and the shortage of medical masks during the global coronavirus pandemic, building furnishings and creating handmade masks became popular DIY projects in Japan.However, despite an upward trend in sales in recent years, DIY suppliers are faced with the challenge of making large home improvement projects attractive to consumers. Within a bustling society, in which the service sector is catering to consumer demands with fast and time-efficient professional services, home improvement stores need to rely on the popularity of household necessities in their product assortments to remain relevant against other general merchandisers.
