From DIY to contractors, the home improvement sector stays strong

A closer look at hardware and home improvement retailers on the 2024 Top 100 Retailers list
Sandy Smith
NRF Contributor

The National Retail Federation’s annual Top 100 Retailers list ranks retailers based on U.S. sales. Walmart continues to hold the top spot, followed by Amazon, Costco, Kroger and The Home Depot. This series takes a look at power players in select retail categories. Power players are retailers in this Top 100 list with 2023 U.S. sales equal to or greater than 10% of the sales of the category leader.

2024 Top 100 Retailers List

NRF's Top 100 Retailers ranks the industry’s largest companies according to sales.

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Maybe we watched too much HGTV during the pandemic and were convinced that we could “Joanna Gaines” our homes. The do-it-yourself movement was “prevalent” over the past few years, says David Marcotte, senior vice president of global retail and technology for Kantar, which compiles data for the National Retail Federation’s annual ranking of the industry’s 100 largest retailers by domestic retail sales.

While home improvement has stayed strong in the post-pandemic retail world, it has done so by capturing a new audience: contractors. 

“Companies were well suited to making that shift,” Marcotte says. “All that really shifted was who was doing the work.”

With such massive shifts from DIYers to contractors, The Home Depot, Lowe’s and Ace Hardware all dipped slightly while True Value increased slightly.

If DIYers are continuing to work on their homes, however, it is likely with a paint brush in hand. Sherwin-Williams had another strong year, up 7.4% in retail sales and 1.5% in U.S store growth.

“When you talk about DIY sequencing, the first one that almost everybody starts with is painting,” Marcotte says. “They did really good there.”

Paint also helped companies like Ace Hardware, Marcotte says.

 

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