Secteur des magasins de bricolage et des matériaux de construction : quel avenir pour les petits commerces face aux grandes surfaces en région wallonne ?

Abstract

The do-it-yourself and building materials sector in Wallonia is divided between small businesses and big stores, which are analysed during this work. Everyone feels involved in this sector because everyone has already been in this kind of shops. After setting the context by explaining the do-it-yourself and building materials sector in Wallonia and its history, this master thesis tries to clear up the choice of the different ratios and the success and risk factors for small businesses. The different studied brands are the following for big stores : Brico, Hubo, Brico Plan It, Gamma and Arma, BigMat Cataldo, Brico Targez, Moline Habitat, Dartevelle, Garsou et Royal Tapis for small businesses. These theoretical parts show us an increased competition between the different brands and a saturated market. Every business shows us that the competition can not increase in the next years if everyone wants to survive. Then, the practical part deals with the presentation of the market by summarising all the numerical informations for big stores but also for small businesses. The purpose of this work is to examine the viability of the sector, and particularly the viability of small businesses in front of big stores, by analysing liquidity, profitability and solvency of the different businesses. This is the quantitative analysis of the master thesis and it includes the choice of the period of six years beginning in 2010 until 2015 and the analysis strictly speaking. This analysis allows us to have an overview of the sector which seems to be in a good shape even if few businesses seem to have some small weaknesses. Thereafter, we determine the success and risk factors for small businesses in front of big stores. A qualitative analysis allows us to validate the theoretical success and risk factors and complete them with the practical aspect of the sector. To conclude, the quantitative and qualitative analyses give the same results. The small businesses benefit from more success than risk factors. Moreover, the results of the financial analysis of small shops are higher than those from big stores. But it is still difficult to determine the future of the sector because the evolution of the sector is unpredictable.