Highlights from the 2019 HIRI Summit

The last week of Sep­tem­ber brought in not only the fall but the largest HIRI event to date, the 2019 HIRI Sum­mit. The annu­al event held in down­town Chica­go brought togeth­er indus­try insid­ers, thought lead­ers and some of the largest stake­hold­ers in home improve­ment and remod­el­ing to dis­cuss cur­rent trends, the eco­nom­ic envi­ron­ment, and action­able insights.

There will more cov­er­age of the Sum­mit in the com­ing weeks, but in the mean­time, here are some of the top insights.

• The fun­da­men­tals of the home improve­ment mar­ket are strong, and hous­ing stock and home­own­er make-up are favor­able in keep­ing the mar­ket strong. — Nino Sitchi­na­va, Houzz
• Dis­cre­tionary lux­u­ry remod­el­ing is slow­ing with the five prod­uct cat­e­gories fac­ing the most severe head­winds: High-end cab­i­nets, cladding, floor­ing, roof­ing and dimen­sion­al lum­ber. — Todd Toma­lak, John Burns Real Estate Consulting
• Do not under­es­ti­mate the effects that trade wars have on ​“bystander” coun­tries and indus­tries — firms can and have paid dear­ly for assum­ing they will be unaf­fect­ed sim­ply because their sup­ply chains and/​or end prod­ucts are not being direct­ly tar­get­ed. — David Logan, NAHB
• It is impor­tant to mea­sure the impact the weath­er has on your busi­ness, and you CAN do some­thing about the weath­er — both in the plan­ning process and dur­ing the sell­ing sea­son — to increase sales, min­i­mize costs, and enhance prof­it. — Scott Bern­hardt, Planalytics
• For home improve­ment, the shopper’s jour­ney is not just ​‘where do I find this?’ but more impor­tant­ly ​‘how do I do this?’ mak­ing the role of the asso­ciate crit­i­cal. — Amy Antho­ny, Lowe’s
• Shop­ping and pur­chas­ing via mobile device is grow­ing rapid­ly and must be the main strat­e­gy at retail. — Bren­dan Baby, The Home Depot
• Break­ing bar­ri­ers to entry online requires cre­ative solu­tions such as how to bring the ​‘touch & feel’ from the store into the home, expand­ing deliv­ery options, reduc­ing ship­ping expens­es, revers­ing a bad return expe­ri­ence, and cap­tur­ing the customer’s atten­tion ear­ly dur­ing their research phase to avoid cart aban­don­ment. — Leen Nsouli, The NPD Group
• Gen Z is a DIF­FER­ENT gen­er­a­tion than Mil­len­ni­als. They look like no oth­er youth gen­er­a­tion before. They val­ue prag­ma­tism and secu­ri­ty as they embark on chang­ing the world. — Therese Caru­so, Zeno Group
• 80% of orga­ni­za­tions expect to com­pete main­ly based on CX this year – expe­ri­ence-led busi­ness­es have high­er cus­tomer reten­tion, return on spend and high­er cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion rates. — Michele Booth, IPSOS
• When you talk about sus­tain­abil­i­ty as it relates to home improve­ment pur­chas­es, sav­ings is not an effec­tive mes­sage. Try to tie the ben­e­fit to health, and give Amer­i­cans pre­scrip­tive steps to take to make it hap­pen. — Suzanne Shel­ton, Shel­ton Group.