Home Improvement Report 2011 - DIY vs Contract Services

DIY vs Contract Services

DIY, or “do-it-yourself,” is the method of completing home improvement projects for consumers who “like to get their hands dirty.” DIY is where the consumer does the project labor his or herself, sometimes with the guidance of professionals. Franchises such as Ace Hardware have a significant consumer base of “DIYers,” or people who like to do projects for themselves. The franchises within this subset of the home improvement industry typically carry a large amount of merchandise for purchase that spans across many different categories (e.g. paint, hardware, tools).

Alternatively, there are consumers who prefer to bring in outside help to complete projects – contract out the job – because they don’t have the skill necessary to do the job, they don’t have the time, or they don’t want to deal with the hassles of getting the proper permits to do the work themselves. Most home improvement franchises fall into this category of contracted services. Because of the large range in services that can be provided, there are numerous franchises in this area. Many of these franchises loosely fall into the following categories:

Franchises can cross over into two or more of these categories. Furthermore, franchises can be specialized within a category, focusing on only one part of a property i.e. kitchen remodeling. There are also home improvement franchises that don’t fall into any of the above categories such as home inspection franchises.