What does the DIY retail market landscape look like in the US?

The US DIY retail industry is anchored by the concentrated generalist segment, led by a small number of national big box platforms (e.g. The Home Depot, Lowe’s) that leverage broad assortments on the back of centralized merchandising and fulfillment to support both DIY and professional use cases. These players operate at scale, competing with regional and cooperative formats on convenience and localized service, while responding to digital-first competition through expanded online engagement. By contrast, the remainder of the market is structurally fragmented across the building materials and gardening segments, with distinct degrees of specialization. Herein, building materials retail combines a limited number of national and multi-regional distributors (e.g. ABC Supply) with a long tail of local and specialty operators (e.g. Curtis Lumber), where scale advantages are driven by branch density and captive job-site logistics rather than consumer footfall. Similarly, the gardening segment is locally anchored and execution-sensitive, with performance shaped by seasonality and live-goods perishability, leading regional specialists (e.g. Mahoney’s Garden Centers) to differentiate through service-led support rather than footprint scale.