7 Cross-Category Purchasing Trends to Inform Home Improvement Merchandising Strategies in 2025

Once a poten­tial cus­tomer sets foot in a store — whether it’s a brick-and-mor­tar estab­lish­ment or a vir­tu­al shop — an oppor­tu­ni­ty presents itself. It’s the oppor­tu­ni­ty to not only help them find and buy the items on their shop­ping list but also to moti­vate them to make a few extra pur­chas­es along the way.

To that end, home improve­ment retail­ers must be invest­ed in increas­ing prod­uct-cat­e­go­ry reach with­in their estab­lish­ment, both to aid their bot­tom line and to improve the over­all cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. One way to do so is by encour­ag­ing cross-cat­e­go­ry purchasing.

As a man­u­fac­tur­er, you have a part to play in achiev­ing this goal, which ben­e­fits your brand as well as the retail­ers you part­ner with. The goal is to cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for DIY home­own­ers and pros to pur­chase prod­ucts from mul­ti­ple cat­e­gories in a sin­gle shop­ping trip to a spe­cif­ic retail­er.

What Strategies Encourage Cross-Category Purchases at Home Improvement Retailers?

Encour­ag­ing cross-cat­e­go­ry shop­ping — and mak­ing it sim­ple, con­ve­nient and intu­itive — ben­e­fits both shop­pers and retailers.

Accord­ing to data from our 2024 Home Improve­ment Retail Selec­tor Study, the type and vari­ety of prod­ucts that a retail­er sup­plies is a strong moti­vat­ing fac­tor for cus­tomers when choos­ing where to shop—and this dri­ver has been steadi­ly on the rise since 2016. It’s espe­cial­ly true for home cen­ters and spe­cial­ty stores.

Cus­tomers want to shop at loca­tions that give them access to a great selec­tion of prod­ucts. Addi­tion­al­ly, one-stop shop­ping was a rea­son for pur­chas­ing from a spe­cif­ic retail­er for 3 in 4 cus­tomers in 2024. So while retail­ers are dri­ving bas­ket size, they can also sat­is­fy these cus­tomer needs and respond to the moti­vat­ing fac­tors behind their retail­er selection.

There are the two over­ar­ch­ing strate­gies that sup­port cross-cat­e­go­ry pur­chas­ing for home improve­ment retailers:

1. Displays and Promotions

Dis­plays and pro­mo­tion­al mer­chan­dis­ing strate­gies are typ­i­cal­ly short term, spe­cif­ic, and often sea­son­al. A retail­er might have a dis­play encour­ag­ing home­own­ers to get their yard ready for the spring that includes an array of essen­tials for out­door projects, from tools to mate­ri­als and accessories.

You could bun­dle togeth­er items relat­ed to a spe­cif­ic project, with a total amount that is low­er than what retail cus­tomers would spend buy­ing each prod­uct indi­vid­u­al­ly. Or you could run a pro­mo­tion where shop­pers who buy an item, such as hand tools or pow­er tools, receive a dis­count on com­ple­men­tary items, like hard­ware or oth­er build­ing materials.

Addi­tion­al­ly, a retail­er could run a brand-wide pro­mo­tion that moti­vates shop­pers to pur­chase add-ons from the same man­u­fac­tur­er, cre­at­ing more vis­i­bil­i­ty and aware­ness around what that brand has to offer or dri­ving cus­tomers to try a new prod­uct from a new (or famil­iar) brand.

2. Category-adjacencies

Cat­e­go­ry-adja­cen­cies, on the oth­er hand, require more long-term strate­giz­ing. They can affect the lay­out, flow, and prod­uct place­ment with­in a store on a macro lev­el, which sup­ports how the retail­er per­forms among mar­ket com­peti­tors over time.

You’re think­ing about what type of projects your cus­tomer might be com­plet­ing, and what prod­ucts they’ll need in the process — espe­cial­ly the ones that might not be top-of-mind. When cus­tomers are exposed to these prod­ucts while shop­ping for the ones already on their list, they might be moti­vat­ed to add them to their bas­ket, thus dri­ving bas­ket size. For exam­ple, you’d want your lum­ber prod­ucts to be locat­ed near var­i­ous tools and hard­ware typ­i­cal­ly used for build­ing projects. But there’s also a good chance shop­pers would con­sid­er get­ting their paints and fin­ish­es from the same retail­er if prop­er­ly motivated.

It can be help­ful to under­stand home­own­ers’ pur­chas­ing pref­er­ences and behav­iors, includ­ing what types of prod­ucts they pur­chase, pur­chase moti­va­tors, shop­ping pref­er­ences, and oth­er impor­tant mar­ket dynam­ics. By iden­ti­fy­ing and ana­lyz­ing the pri­ma­ry fac­tors that influ­ence home­own­ers’ deci­sions when choos­ing retail­ers and build­ing prod­ucts, you can gain insight into oppor­tu­ni­ties for increas­ing cross-cat­e­go­ry purchasing.

Which Home Improvement Products Have a High Rate of Cross-Category Purchasing?

Both cat­e­go­ry-adja­cen­cies and cross-cat­e­go­ry dis­plays and pro­mo­tions require an under­stand­ing of spe­cif­ic prod­uct cat­e­gories and sub­cat­e­gories for home improve­ment and con­struc­tion, and data on which ones are cross-pur­chased most fre­quent­ly. This enables you to effec­tive­ly eval­u­ate adja­cen­cies, assort­ments, and pro­mo­tions and test var­i­ous mer­chan­dis­ing strate­gies aimed at increas­ing cross-cat­e­go­ry pur­chas­ing and boost­ing cus­tomer satisfaction.

Here are a few notable data points from our 2024 Home Improve­ment Retail Selec­tor Study to inform future strate­giz­ing for man­u­fac­tur­ers and retailers:

1. Paint and Painting Accessories have the Highest Potential for Cross-Purchasing

In 2024, near­ly one-third of shop­pers pur­chased paint and/​or paint acces­sories in addi­tion to anoth­er cat­e­go­ry in the same trip.

This is an ongo­ing trend sup­port­ed by find­ings from across HIRI research, and it is con­sis­tent across prod­uct cat­e­gories, with the lawn and gar­den cat­e­go­ry being the only exception. 

For exam­ple, two-thirds of peo­ple pur­chas­ing ceiling/​floor mate­ri­als, as well as wall/​window cov­er­ings, also pur­chased paint and asso­ci­at­ed acces­sories. While there’s been a small decline in the per­cent­age over the past cou­ple of years, it’s still an impor­tant trend among home improve­ment shoppers.

2. Hardware and Building Materials have Significant Crossover with Other Categories

Hard­ware and build­ing mate­ri­als also have a high rate of being bought in addi­tion to oth­er prod­ucts in dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories in a sin­gle trip. In par­tic­u­lar, hard­ware has a high asso­ci­a­tion to prod­ucts in the lum­ber, wall/​window cov­er­ings, build­ing mate­ri­als, and hand tool cat­e­gories. Build­ing mate­ri­als have the high­est crossover with hard­ware and lumber. 

For exam­ple, in 2024 about half of the cus­tomers who pur­chased lum­ber mate­ri­als also pur­chased prod­ucts from the paint, hard­ware, and build­ing mate­ri­als categories.

3. Customers Often Purchase Hand Tools and Power Tools Together

There is a con­nec­tion between pow­er tools and acces­sories and the hand tools cat­e­go­ry, with more than 40% of peo­ple shop­ping for prod­ucts in the first cat­e­go­ry also mak­ing pur­chas­es in the lat­ter. It’s impor­tant to track what kinds of requests cus­tomers make when they’re in the store search­ing for a par­tic­u­lar product. 

You can encour­age your store asso­ciates to pick­up on these cues from cus­tomers and pass that feed­back along for ques­tions such as,

• What oth­er prod­ucts do cus­tomers ask about? 
• Are there oppor­tu­ni­ties to sup­ply these items or mate­ri­als for a more sat­is­fy­ing and con­ve­nient shop­ping experience?
• When do cus­tomers feel most con­fused about where to find a cer­tain kind of product?

4. Electrical/​Lighting Materials have a Strong Relationship to HVAC

Approx­i­mate­ly 45% of shop­pers pur­chas­ing HVAC mate­ri­als also bought prod­ucts in the elec­tri­cal and light­ing cat­e­go­ry.

Know­ing that con­nec­tion could give retail­ers insight for inten­tion­al and effec­tive cat­e­go­ry-adja­cen­cies with­in their store lay­out. You also might con­sid­er run­ning pro­mo­tions where shop­pers can get mul­ti­ple prod­ucts in a pack­age or bun­dled together.

5. Kitchen and Bathroom Remodeling Lead to Plumbing Purchases

Both kitchen and bath­room remod­el­ing prod­ucts have a high rate of cross-cat­e­go­ry pur­chas­ing with plumb­ing prod­ucts. About 40% of cus­tomers shop­ping in the bath­room and kitchen remod­el­ing cat­e­gories also make pur­chas­es in the plumb­ing cat­e­go­ry.

The same goes for indi­vid­u­als shop­ping for major home appli­ances. Indi­vid­u­als are look­ing to knock out their shop­ping list for var­i­ous home improve­ment projects in a sin­gle trip, when feasible.

6. Outdoor Living has Lower Connections to Other Product Categories

While paint and paint­ing acces­sories have a high poten­tial for cross-cat­e­go­ry pur­chas­ing, research shows that out­door liv­ing prod­ucts are on the oppo­site end of the spectrum. 

Out­door liv­ing prod­ucts are less fre­quent­ly paired with oth­er prod­uct pur­chas­es dur­ing a sin­gle shop­ping trip. Cus­tomers seem to have a nar­row­er shop­ping lens when they come in with this intention. 

Retail­ers face chal­lenges moti­vat­ing them to buy from oth­er prod­uct cat­e­gories at the same time, but there also may be oppor­tu­ni­ty there to imple­ment more tai­lored mer­chan­dis­ing strategies.

7. Customers are More Motivated by Product Selection than a Particular Brand

Across almost all prod­uct cat­e­gories, cus­tomers tend to choose a retail­er based on them hav­ing a great selec­tion of prod­ucts as opposed to want­i­ng a par­tic­u­lar brand. That means if a retail­er is inten­tion­al about how they stock and the options they pro­vide cus­tomers, they can draw in cus­tomers — and sat­is­fy their needs for items from com­ple­men­tary prod­uct categories. 

The two notable excep­tions, by slight mar­gins, are major home appli­ances and pow­er tools. Cus­tomers are a lit­tle more like­ly to choose a retail­er if they know they car­ry the brand of home appli­ance and the brand of pow­er tool they want.

Get More Data and Insights to Drive Your Strategic Business Decisions

HIRI’s Home Improve­ment Retail Selec­tor Study—avail­able to HIRI mem­bers — will help you under­stand the pur­chas­ing dynam­ics of con­sumers across a vari­ety of home improve­ment prod­uct cat­e­gories. Addi­tion­al­ly, you’ll gain insight into how those dynam­ics have changed recent­ly, com­pared to pri­or years, and how you can uti­lize cur­rent trends to your advantage.

This study is just one of sev­er­al dozen research stud­ies con­duct­ed annu­al­ly by the Home Improve­ment Research Insti­tute on behalf of mem­bers. Not yet a mem­ber? Then you’re miss­ing out on unlim­it­ed access to one mil­lion dol­lars worth of home improve­ment spe­cif­ic mar­ket research. Sim­ply sched­ule a con­sul­ta­tion to learn more.