Selling more to existing customers: Four ways to unlock growth in DIY Retail
At a time when consumers are watching their spending and retailers are under pressure to deliver more from every square foot of space, the opportunity may be closer than you think. Daley Hub explores four practical ways to grow sales by making more of every customer visit.
Growth starts with the customers already through your door
Winning new customers is expensive. From marketing and promotions to building brand awareness and driving footfall, customer acquisition requires investment. Yet there is another opportunity that retailers can sometimes overlook: selling more to the customers who are already shopping with them.
In a challenging retail environment, improving the value of each transaction can be a powerful way to drive growth. It is about understanding what customers need, helping them discover relevant products and making it easier for them to buy a little more.
For the DIY and home improvement sector, this is particularly relevant. Rising household costs, reduced discretionary spending and lower consumer confidence are all influencing purchasing decisions. Online shopping continues to grow, with the customer journey often beginning long before someone walks into a store. However, there is reason for optimism. When homeowners choose to improve their existing property rather than move, spending on their homes can increase significantly. The opportunity for retailers is to make sure they are well placed to meet those needs.
So, how can retailers make more of the customers they already have?
At Daley Hub, our experience working with suppliers and major retailers across the UK and Europe has highlighted four practical growth levers worth considering: newness, queue management, SKU density and the add-on sale.
1. Newness: Give customers a reason to come back
Customers need reasons to revisit a store. A compelling range, fresh ideas and products that solve new problems can all help create interest and encourage repeat visits.
Importantly, introducing newness does not necessarily mean investing heavily in additional stock. It starts with understanding your customers and identifying the products that are most relevant to them.
Basket analysis is a useful place to begin. Looking at both the value and the number of units purchased can reveal buying patterns, product relationships and opportunities to introduce complementary items. Consider the projects customers are undertaking. What are they buying together? What else might they need to complete the job? Are there products they would find useful but may not know you stock? Sometimes, the simplest approach is to ask them.
Understanding different customer groups can also help retailers make better range decisions. A family buying for a home renovation may have different requirements from an older homeowner tackling smaller maintenance jobs, or a grandparent purchasing for a family project. Once these needs are understood, retailers can look beyond the main product location. Secondary displays, clip strips and carefully considered product adjacency can bring relevant products to customers' attention at the right moment.
For example, understanding the relationship between paint sales and brush purchases could reveal opportunities to improve product placement and encourage customers to buy everything they need in one visit.
The principle is straightforward: make the range relevant, create interest and give customers a reason to return.
2. Queue management: Make the most of the waiting moment
The area around the checkout is an obvious place to encourage additional purchases, but retailers should think more broadly about where customers pause, wait or spend time in store.
The aim is to make small, convenient purchases easy to spot and easy to pick up.
In DIY and home improvement retail, this could include gloves, tape, batteries, wipes, cable ties and other accessories. These are products that customers may need for a project but might not have included on their original shopping list.
The key is to choose the right products at the right price point. An effective impulse purchase should feel like a simple addition to the basket rather than a considered buying decision that requires extensive research.
Retailers should also look beyond the traditional till area. Front-of-store baskets, high-traffic areas and other natural stopping points can all provide opportunities to showcase suitable products. Nor does the additional purchase always have to come from the same product category. The wider retail environment demonstrates that customers can be receptive to relevant, convenient products outside the main purpose of their visit.
The challenge is to identify those moments in the customer journey when an additional purchase makes sense. By reviewing customer movement around the store and testing different placements, retailers can discover opportunities to increase basket value without relying solely on promotions or additional footfall.
3. SKU density: Make every square metre work harder
Retail space is valuable, and making the best use of it can have a direct impact on product choice, customer experience and sales performance. SKU density is not simply about squeezing more products onto shelves. It is about ensuring the available space works as effectively as possible, with the right products presented in a logical and accessible way.
A well-planned layout helps customers navigate a category, understand the available options and find the products they need. Poorly organised space, on the other hand, can make products harder to discover and create unnecessary barriers to purchase.
Planograms are an important part of this process, helping retailers use shelf space consistently and deliberately. They also are valuable to ensure that strong selling products stay on the shelf, we often see best sellers missing from the shelf purely due to replenishment issues. However, they should not become static documents that are never reviewed.
Regularly reassessing facings, product positioning and the overall category layout can reveal space that is being underused.
In one example we saw, a review of a one-metre bay initially thought to have no available space created room for 36 additional product positions simply by replanning the facings.
That illustrates the potential value of looking at existing space differently before assuming that expansion requires more fixtures or a larger store.
The same thinking is relevant as retailers develop smaller store formats. A smaller footprint does not automatically mean a less productive store. With careful range selection, effective merchandising and a clear customer journey, retailers can make a more compact space work harder.
The objective should always be to balance range choice with accessibility and ease of shopping. More products only create value when customers can find them, understand them and are motivated to buy them.
4. Till-point conversation: Turn the add-on into a sale
The final opportunity is the add-on sale: encouraging customers to purchase a complementary product or take advantage of a relevant offer while completing their transaction. It sounds simple, but small additions can make a meaningful difference when they are consistently achieved across a large number of transactions. Examples from wider retail include offering chocolate with a purchase, bottled water alongside a coffee, or a discounted accessory to complement a main product. The same principle can be applied in DIY and home improvement retail.
A customer buying a particular product may benefit from an associated accessory, a useful consumable or another item that helps them complete their project.
The important point is relevance. An additional product should offer a clear benefit to the customer, rather than feeling like an unnecessary attempt to increase the sale. Retailers can support this through well-designed promotions, clear product messaging, staff recommendations and effective positioning at the point of purchase.
There is also an opportunity to measure how well these initiatives perform. Attachment rates the proportion of relevant transactions that include an additional product can help retailers understand whether their efforts are working.
If attachment rates are not currently tracked, establishing a baseline is a useful first step. From there, retailers can test different product pairings, offers and sales approaches to identify what works best.
The central message is that the opportunity lies in the percentage of customers who take up a relevant additional offer. Small improvements in conversion can add up when applied consistently across a retailer's transaction base.
Measure what matters
While each of these four growth levers can be considered individually, their real value comes from taking a joined-up approach.
New products can encourage repeat visits. Better product adjacency can help customers discover complementary items. More effective use of shelf space can improve choice and conversion. And relevant add-on offers can increase the value of individual transactions.
Yet retailers cannot improve what they do not measure.
Average basket value, units per transaction, attachment rates and the performance of individual product categories can all help identify where opportunities exist. Combining this information with customer feedback and an understanding of project-led shopping missions provides a stronger foundation for making decisions. It is also worth testing changes rather than assuming that every initiative will work in every store. Different locations, customer groups and product categories may respond differently, so reviewing the results is essential.
Turning everyday transactions into growth
Retailers do not always need a major investment or a completely new strategy to uncover additional sales. Sometimes, the opportunity lies in making better use of the space, products, customer knowledge and interactions they already have.
The four approaches — bringing in newness, optimising queue and waiting areas (QMS), improving SKU density and encouraging relevant add-on sales — offer practical starting points for retailers looking to strengthen performance in a challenging market.
Ultimately, the aim is not simply to sell more. It is to help customers find what they need, discover products that genuinely add value and enjoy a better shopping experience.
Get that right, and retailers have a stronger chance of increasing basket value, encouraging repeat visits and building lasting customer relationships.
At Daley Hub, we believe sustainable retail growth comes from understanding the customer, challenging existing practices and turning practical insights into action.
Sometimes, the next sales opportunity is already in your store....
