Highest customer satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction with hardware stores has increased with all four of the major players showing improvement, including the market leader, Bunnings.
New research from the Roy Morgan Hardware Store Satisfaction Report found Bunnings was the best overall performer with a customer satisfaction rate of 89.8%.
There are eleven million people shopping at Bunnings in an average four week period, making it the dominant player in this market with around 95% of hardware shoppers. Bunnings also had an increase of nearly 600,000 customers over the last year and were the only player to show an increase, apart from True Value Hardware (up 1,000).
In second place for satisfaction was Home Hardware on 89.4% (up 1.5%), followed by Mitre 10 with 88.1% (up 0.1%). These top three performers are only separated by 1.7% points and all remain well ahead of True Value Hardware on 79.3% (up 4.7% year on year).
Roy Morgan industry communications director, Norman Morris, said satisfaction levels with hardware stores are higher than most other retail categories and over the last year showed these retailers are continuing their customer focus, with all four of the majors showing improvement.
“To date there has been limited competition from online players but our research shows that in an average four week period around a quarter of a million people purchase some hardware online. With increased competition from new players like Amazon, bricks and mortar hardware stores will need to focus even more on customers, particularly the advantage they are likely to have regarding their ability to provide personal advice,” Morris said.
“The data used here is only a small part of what Roy Morgan has been collecting and analysing on hardware stores and all other retailers over many years. As a result we have a database which is uniquely suited to tracking and understanding consumer behaviour and attitudes in this industry.”
The report is based on in-depth personal interviews conducted face-to-face with over 50,000 Australians per annum in their own homes, including over 9,000 interviews with people who have shopped in a hardware store in the last four weeks.