6 Top Trends in Pro Attitudes of Good, Better, Best Product Offerings

Home improve­ment pro­fes­sion­als pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant cus­tomer base for the build­ing prod­uct indus­try, and brand loy­al­ty plays an impor­tant role in where they choose to invest their pur­chas­ing pow­er. Our researchers stud­ied this top­ic on behalf of HIRI mem­bers and the full find­ings are avail­able in the 2024 Pro Atti­tudes Toward Good-Bet­ter-Best Prod­uct Offer­ings report.

In gen­er­al, results show that among pros, brand rep­u­ta­tion is the pri­ma­ry dri­ver when it comes to pur­chas­ing build­ing prod­ucts—more so than ease of instal­la­tion, prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty, price and prod­uct quality.

Cul­ti­vat­ing a pos­i­tive brand rep­u­ta­tion and strong brand loy­al­ty requires a mul­ti-pronged approach from build­ing prod­uct man­u­fac­tur­ers and retail­ers, but embrac­ing Good-Bet­ter-Best (GBB) prod­uct offer­ings is an effec­tive way to accom­plish both goals.

Understanding Pro Attitudes Towards Good-Better-Best Offerings

Offer­ing a range of good, bet­ter, and best prod­ucts has a pow­er­ful­ly pos­i­tive impact on both loy­al­ty and sat­is­fac­tion, with min­i­mal down­sides, accord­ing to HIR­I’s Pro Atti­tudes Toward Good-Bet­ter-Best Prod­uct Offer­ings study find­ings. Near­ly 70% of Pro cus­tomers claim that hav­ing a range of prod­uct offer­ings strength­ens their loy­al­ty to a brand, along with their brand satisfaction.

From our sur­vey of home improve­ment pro­fes­sion­als, three seg­ments of pro cus­tomers emerged:

• The Want It All seg­ment, which accounts for about 45% of indus­try pro­fes­sion­als and, in par­tic­u­lar, small firms. They want the best of all attrib­ut­es when select­ing home improve­ment products.
• The Brand Above All seg­ment, which com­pris­es about 30% of Pros, espe­cial­ly those in spe­cial­ty fields. This seg­ment is pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with brand reputation.
• ·The Brand Imma­te­r­i­al seg­ment, which is the small­est seg­ment at 25%. They are rel­a­tive­ly unin­flu­enced by brand or oth­er attrib­ut­es in iso­la­tion. This seg­ment includes many larg­er firms and Pros work­ing in new construction.

Under­stand­ing the opin­ions and atti­tudes that Pros have toward GBB prod­uct offer­ings can help man­u­fac­tur­ers and retail­ers decide whether to incor­po­rate this approach into their long-term busi­ness strat­e­gy and how it might affect how cus­tomers per­ceive them.Here are a few insights into how pros feel about the GBB and how it influ­ences their pur­chas­ing decisions:

1. Brand Reputation Influences Purchasing Decisions

Look­ing at brand rep­u­ta­tion, ease of instal­la­tion, prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty, price, and prod­uct qual­i­ty, brand rep­u­ta­tion dwarfs all oth­er prod­uct attrib­ut­es when mak­ing prod­uct-pur­chas­ing deci­sions. Pro cus­tomers are espe­cial­ly sen­si­tive to this attribute and alter­ing it in one direc­tion— going from a poor­ly rat­ed brand to a high­ly rat­ed brand, for exam­ple — has an over­whelm­ing influ­ence on pref­er­ences. The one draw­back is that improv­ing your brand rep­u­ta­tion can be a chal­lenge, and often one that requires a more long-term strat­e­gy. Giv­en the impor­tant role it plays in influ­enc­ing Pro atti­tudes, how­ev­er, it should be an objec­tive for build­ing prod­ucts man­u­fac­tur­ers and retailers.

2. Pros are Highly Aware of the GBB Approach

A stag­ger­ing num­ber of home improve­ment pros — or 96% — are over­whelm­ing­ly aware of the Good-Bet­ter-Best approach that brands use in the build­ing prod­ucts indus­try. Although this aware­ness is high­est among those involved in new con­struc­tion or mechan­i­cal work, the aware­ness nev­er falls below 90% for any major work cat­e­go­ry. Addi­tion­al­ly, when ref­er­enc­ing the build­ing prod­ucts brands that they fre­quent­ly use, about 82% of pros list brands who use the GBB approach. This is espe­cial­ly true for new con­struc­tion con­trac­tors. Most Pros using brands that offer GBB options say the brand com­mu­ni­cates their approach well, and empha­size how valu­able this is. There’s a strong opin­ion that brands using a GBB should estab­lish clear qual­i­ty stan­dards and be clear about the dif­fer­ences between prod­uct tiers.

3. Pros Appreciate a Range of Price Points

Pro­vid­ing a range of GBB prod­uct lines to your cus­tomers can help you increase their sat­is­fac­tion, brand loy­al­ty, and repur­chase intent. In fact, about 76% of Pros agree that man­u­fac­tur­ers should offer prod­ucts across mul­ti­ple pric­ing tiers. Addi­tion­al­ly, more than two-thirds feel that it’s easy to com­pare the prod­uct dif­fer­ences among GBB prod­ucts offered by a sin­gle man­u­fac­tur­er and brands who are known for their Good prod­ucts can ele­vate the per­cep­tion of their brand by offer­ing Best prod­ucts. How­ev­er, they also feel there are a cou­ple of risks for man­u­fac­tur­ers and retail­ers. For exam­ple, about half believe that brands known for hav­ing the Best prod­ucts in their cat­e­go­ry dimin­ish the per­cep­tion of their brand by offer­ing Good prod­ucts. In gen­er­al, Pros also pre­fer lux­u­ry brands with bud­get offer­ings over bud­get brands with lux­u­ry offerings.

4. Pro Customers Tend to Purchase Best Product Offerings

If you’re set­ting your home improve­ment prod­uct attrib­ut­es to align with GBB offer­ings, it can be help­ful to know that the Best prod­uct favored over the Bet­ter prod­uct by 20% and approx­i­mate­ly 40% more than the Good option, despite high­er cost and lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty. How­ev­er, by improv­ing prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty and ease of instal­la­tion of the Bet­ter prod­uct, the pref­er­ence gap between the Bet­ter and Best prod­uct is reduced to 3%. Those two attrib­ut­es are often less chal­leng­ing to influ­ence in the short term than rep­u­ta­tion, which has the great­est impact on nar­row­ing the gap between Bet­ter and Best prod­ucts. Addi­tion­al­ly, for the Want it All seg­ment, 100% cit­ed prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty and ease of instal­la­tion as the two attrib­ut­es they would most like­ly spec­i­fy or pur­chase for a typ­i­cal customer.

5. Product Availability and Compatibility are Top Challenges

When attempt­ing to nav­i­gate man­u­fac­tur­ers’ prod­uct lines and pric­ing struc­tures, half of build­ing Pros feel that deter­min­ing prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty is a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge. Near­ly half also find it dif­fi­cult to ensure com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with oth­er prod­ucts and mate­ri­als for a project. Addi­tion­al­ly, 45% of Pros find it chal­leng­ing to com­pare pric­ing, and this is espe­cial­ly true among the Brand Above All segment.

6. Physical Stores Provide an Opportunity for Improving Communication

Sur­pris­ing­ly, the top area rec­om­mend­ed among Pros for improv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion is with­in phys­i­cal stores and retail loca­tions. About 49% of the Want it All seg­ment and 41% of the Brand Above All seg­ment offered this as a sug­ges­tion for brands who are seek­ing ways to bet­ter com­mu­ni­cate with their cus­tomers. More than a third also sug­gest­ed that phys­i­cal store employ­ees can be used as a means for improv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, which demon­strates the impor­tance of offline engage­ment. Oth­er sug­gest­ed areas of improve­ment include sup­pli­er web­sites, man­u­fac­tur­er web­sites, and prod­uct documentation.

Researching Customer Usage and Attitudes Toward Building Product Selections

Our 2024 Good-Bet­ter-Best Study aims to shed light on how dif­fer­ent prod­uct lines and price points influ­ence con­trac­tors’ atti­tudes and behav­iors when select­ing prod­ucts. These valu­able insights can help build­ing prod­ucts man­u­fac­tur­ers and retail­ers tai­lor their strate­gies to bet­ter meet the needs of home improve­ment pro­fes­sion­als — improv­ing brand rep­u­ta­tion, fos­ter­ing stronger rela­tion­ships, and dri­ving busi­ness growth. 

To access this full report, along with about 40 oth­er home improve­ment indus­try stud­ies annu­al­ly, become a mem­ber of HIRI.