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FOMU Impacts DIY Projects Fear of Messing Up (FOMU) impacts almost everyone tackling a DIY home improvement project, according the Better Homes & Gardens (BHG) 2024 DIY Trends Report. Research showed that 70% of people admit to hiring a professional to complete a project they started rather than doing it themselves because they fear messing it up. Of those, 25% of people say they don’t trust themselves to do it correctly, 23% say they’re afraid they’ll make costly mistakes, and 22% are worried about potentially dangerous consequences (like flooding or an electrical fire) if they do it themselves. People still wish they could do some projects themselves. Tops on the respondents’ wish list were renovating an entire room, mounting a TV on the wall, laying new flooring and re-tiling the bathroom. The bathroom is the number one room they’d like to improve, followed by the living room, primary bedroom, backyard, and kitchen. Respondents prefer risk-free projects that produce maximum effect for minimum effort, including creating wall art and holiday décor, replacing a doorknob, painting and upgrading furniture. Projects people gladly leave to the Pros include electrical wiring, replacing windows, fitting a new toilet, laying new flooring and re-tiling a bathroom. People are more motivated to tackle a DIY project if they believe they can successfully complete it. People believe they’ll save money, be proud of their accomplishment and enjoy the satisfaction of taking on a challenge and successfully completing it. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (74%) have projects they’ve started but never completed. BHG uncovered an interesting trend that accounts for all those started but never finished projects. According to the research, 89% of people hit a low point mid-way through a project and wish they’d never started it. Big as it is, that number climbs to 94% for millennials and 95% for Gen Z. Why do people call it quits mid-way through? The top causes are the fact that projects take longer than expected, people get tired and discouraged and the project costs more than they estimated. Feeling stressed, tired, and bored with a project can sap motivation and mean that the project never gets done BHG partnered with independent research agency GoodQues to develop the BHG 2024 DIY Trend Report. Findings were pulled from an invitation-only forum of 20 people and validated against a study of nearly 2,000 DIYers. Study participants had to be at least partially responsible for both DIY projects and interior design choices in their home, and they must have completed at least one DIY project within the past 12 months. Prime Day Sets Records Shoppers spent a record $14.2 billion over the 48-hour Amazon Prime Day event, according to a report from Adobe Analytics. Other retailers, including Walmart and Target, also got in on the action, with total online sales up 11% over the two days. Sales this year were driven in part by back-to-school shopping with related spending up 216% across both days, compared to daily sales levels in June 2024, according to Adobe. Most popular products were household items and essentials. The average spend per order rose to around $60, compared to around $56 in 2023, per Numerator. Since most households put in multiple orders, the average total spend per US household this year was about $152. Consumers looking to upgrade devices and add new technology helped push online sales for the electronics category up 61% across retailers, Adobe said. Adobe relies on direct-to-consumer transactions based on more than 1 trillion visits to US retail websites. Online spending year to date is up more than 7%. From the start of the year to June 30, US consumers spent $503 billion at online retailers, according to Adobe Analytics. New demand, rather than higher prices, drove the growth in online shopping. Ecommerce prices are down 4% year over year and have continued to fall for most of the last two years, Adobe found. Retail analysts believe the days of "impulse-buying" are gone and that today’s shoppers plan around sale events such as Prime Day and other promotional events. Check Usage Declining, Check Fraud Rising There were only 12 billion checks written in 2021, a nearly 41% plunge from 20.2 billion in 2015, according to recent Federal Reserve data. The Fed is actually processing 80% fewer checks than it was in 2000. People don't carry cash or checks as much as in the past because they rely heavily on their phones, using mobile wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay. Many consumers don’t carry a checkbook and some younger people don't even have physical checks. However, despite the big decline, data shows the average person still writes at least nine checks a year. Many people now use their bank’s online bill payment service. While many of these payments are done electronically, the bank writes a check on the customers’ behalf to smaller businesses and individuals. Some people still use checks to pay landlords, contractors, charities and government agencies. Many people give checks at weddings, births and other special occasions. And many businesses write checks to other businesses when paying their bills. Stores don’t want checks because check fraud is becoming rampant. The US Treasury has a dedicated department that fights monetary crimes, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCen. FinCen gets “Suspicious Activity Reports” from banks that cover everything from money laundering to loan fraud. FinCen reports that the number of check fraud cases nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022. The cash register is one of the most common places where check fraud occurs because anyone with graphics software and a high-quality printer can produce a counterfeit check. Merchants pay twice when they accept a bad check. First, they lose the merchandise, which they’ve already paid for and now cannot be sold to a legitimate customer. Then, unlike shoplifting, the store is faced with more financial pain because most banks charge both the merchant and the check writer when a counterfeit check is presented because the Federal Reserve charges high fees for returning uncollectable checks. Target is the latest retailer to stop accepting checks in the store as payment at registers, although people can still mail in a check to pay their Target Red Card bill (which doesn’t come from Target, of course). Walmart still accepts checks at the register, but many other retailers have stopped, and the move by Target will encourage more to do so. Amazon China Direct Discount Store Amazon plans to introduce a new section on their website that will allow Chinese sellers on their marketplace to ship low-cost products directly from China to customers in the US. The change was announced at an invite-only conference for sellers in China. The new section will feature unbranded products, most of which will be priced below $20. These low-cost products will ship directly from Amazon warehouses in China with a customer delivery goal around nine days. Currently, those Chinese sellers ship their products to Amazon's distribution centers in the US; Amazon drivers then deliver them to customers. Analysts believe the change is Amazon’s response to increased competition from big online retailers such as Shein and Temu, which have ties to China and take advantage of a trade rule that exempts shipments with a value below $800 from tariffs. Those companies target bargain shoppers with aggressive advertising, pitching discounts for customers who are willing to wait for their purchases. China Direct marks a big departure for Amazon, which built their Prime business on one to two day delivery. Analysts speculate that today up to 70% of products sold on Amazon.com are sold by third-party marketplace sellers rather than Amazon. © Robert Bosch Tool Corporation. All rights reserved, no copying or reproducing is permitted without prior written approval.
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