DIY Retail Monitor October 2026: how often German DIY retailers change prices, and how available brand products are

Context for readers outside Germany

The German DIY trade association BHB puts the gross sales of DIY stores in Germany in 2025 at EUR 24.67 billion, of which EUR 20.58 billion according to the BHB/GfK Total Store Report, across 2,004 DIY store locations. Hornbach, OBI, Bauhaus and toom are among the largest chains. Brands sell through them in the classic way: an annual negotiation (Jahresgespräch) with each retailer's buying team settles listings, terms and promotions, while the retailer sets the shelf price and runs each store. What a product actually looks like store by store (listed, priced, in stock) is what this monitor measures.

Differences between the two columns mostly come from reporting dates and from what counts as a store. During the monitor window, 917 stores were observed; 914 were open on 18 October 2026. The chains are spread very unevenly across the country: in northern Bavaria (postcodes starting with 9), OBI has 51 stores and Bauhaus 5. That is why distribution here is always measured per store, not per retailer.

German terms you will meet on the German pages of this site:

• Baumarkt: DIY store or home improvement store.
• Listung / Auslistung: listing and delisting of a product by the retailer.
• Distributionsgrad: distribution, the share of stores that carry a product.
• Filialbestand: in-store stock.
• Aktionspreis / UVP: promotional price / recommended retail price.

Data basis

watch.diy observes listing status, price and in-store stock at Hornbach, OBI, Bauhaus and toom in Germany every day. This monitor covers the 30 days from 13 September to 12 October 2026:

• 2,434 brand products from 191 brands in 917 stores, around 541,000 product–store combinations. Included are products observed in at least 20 stores.
• For the price figures: 1,173 products at Hornbach, OBI and Bauhaus with a price on at least 25 of the 30 days. The measured price is the online price.
• Third-party marketplace offers are not included.

The selection is not a random sample of the DIY assortment. It is the products that manufacturers observe with watch.diy, mostly garden tools, electrical installation, building materials, paint, plant care and sanitary. The figures therefore describe observed brand products in these categories, not DIY retail as a whole. This matters most when comparing retailers: each retailer has a different set of products.

1. How often do German DIY retailers change prices?

DIY prices are calmer than many expect. Three out of four brand products kept the same online price for a whole month. When a price moves, it usually moves once, in a small step, and usually down.

The retailers differ clearly:

Hornbach changed the price of a good twice as many products as Bauhaus and more than four times as many as OBI, mostly downwards. At OBI, price changes were rare, and increases outweighed cuts. One reason is the end of the season: in early October, prices of some robotic lawn mowers went back up after earlier cuts.

Because each retailer has a different set of observed products, we cross-checked the ranking on identical products. Of the 38 products that had a price on at least 25 days at all three retailers, 36.8% changed price at Hornbach and 36.8% at Bauhaus, none at OBI. So OBI changing prices least often also holds for identical products; between Hornbach and Bauhaus the gap is smaller there.

Price changes come in clusters: in the week from 14 September, 13% of products changed price; in the week from 5 October, 2%. Teams that check prices once a quarter often see such moves only after the competitor has already reacted.

2. How available are brand products in German DIY stores?

The usual question about the out-of-stock rate is misleading here. Where a store carries a product, it is almost always there. This holds for all four retailers alike: at Hornbach, OBI, Bauhaus and toom, availability where the product was stocked was between 97.1% and 98.5%. The differences are so small that we do not derive a ranking from them.

The lever for manufacturers is distribution. A typical observed product is in stock in fewer than half of the stores. About a quarter had no stock in any store for the whole month: for example online-only items, items being phased out, or items the stores do not carry on the shelf. Which case applies only shows at the level of the individual product. We do not publish a distribution comparison between retailers: it depends mainly on which products are observed at which retailer.

3. Seasonal products after the season

Garden products (garden tools, plants, barbecue, irrigation) were in stock in only 26% of stores on average during the period, other categories in 46%. Availability where garden products were still stocked was 97.5%, almost level with the rest (97.8%). So in autumn, seasonal products rarely run empty on the shelf. They are stocked in fewer and fewer stores.

What this means for key account teams

• Check distribution before out-of-stock. In the annual negotiation, what counts first is in how many stores a product actually sits, and only then whether it is in stock there.
• Watch prices per retailer.At Hornbach, a product's price moves much more often within a month than at OBI, so one review rhythm for all retailers rarely fits.
• Keep an eye on season changes. Price changes come in clusters, and garden products disappear from many stores after the season.
• Clarify zero-stock products one by one. A product with no stock in any store is either online-only on purpose or a distribution problem. Better to know before the retailer asks.

For your own products, watch.diy shows the same metrics per retailer and per store, every day. What watch.diy covers (in English), or the German glossary for terms like distribution and out-of-stock rate.

Please cite as “watch.diy DIY Retail Monitor, October 2026” with a link to this page.