Regarding the whole assortment, DIY Superstores achieved a sound sales growth of 4.8%. Gardening categories in total had a massive impact on overall sales, with an increase of 10.9% during the first four months of the year against previous year’s period.
In detail, it reveals a sales value increase in living green by 7.8%, garden furniture/ -decoration by 8.5%, and garden hardware by 16.5% compared to January - April 2010. Garden hardware sales were strongly driven by garden watering products, with items like hoses, sprinkler and pumps demonstrating a rise of over 40% in comparison to last year. Within hardware, garden tools also show a reasonably positive development in sales value, with an increase of 9.4%. Even though sales are still on an extremely low level, a new development in the German lawn mower market can now be seen; nowadays, the fully automated robot mowers are also available in DIY Superstores, not only in specialists such as motorists/ garden machinery.
Garden furniture, including barbecues, has been an important sales driver in recent years and it still remains a strong trend; sales increased by 15.8% from January to April 2011 compared to the same period of last year.
Both developments – a sales rise in garden furniture, including barbecues as well as the availability of robot mowers in DIY Superstores – show that living and relaxing in the garden is a highly favored leisure activity in Germany. It has the capacity to strongly boost sales not only in the specialized channels, but also in large-scale formats like DIY Superstores.