Explaining the do-it-yourself (DIY) retail market in a developing country: preliminary lessons from India

Abstract

Until now, studies of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) market have been confined to advanced market economies, with developing countries ignored. This article begins to bridge this gap. Analysing a survey of 500 households in India, a developing country characterized by cheap and surplus labour, and a different cultural milieu, this article investigates whether it is possible to distinguish DIY consumers in the same manner as in Western nations as ‘reluctant’ or ‘willing’ DIYers. The analysis finds that in India, DIY consumers can be concurrently both willing DIYers doing so for pleasure (the choice model) or seeking self-identity from the end-product (post-modern theory) and at the same time reluctant DIYers doing so out of economic necessity reasons (economic determinism model) or due to the lack of appropriately skilled labour (a market failure model). Results also reflected cultural connotations to the respondent perceptions. The multiplicity of reasons, in consequence, shows that no one theorisation of DIY consumers' motives is universally relevant but all theories are sometimes valid. As such, a new typology of DIY consumers' motives has been inductively generated which is theoretically integrative. The results conclude on the need to move beyond using one theory and treating the others as rival competing theories, for a comprehensive explanation of DIY.

Keywords:

• do-it-yourself
• home improvement
• consumer motives
• India
• developing country

Notes

1. The authors appear in alphabetical order. All authors have contributed equally to the article.