Known for its “can do spirit” and “winning” attitude, Wickes is a brand that knows how to get the job done.
After reporting full-year profit ahead of expectations, the DIY giant is now embarking on plans to grow to 300 stores nationwide.
Wickes currently has 230 trading stores across the UK.
It is aiming to open an additional four to five stores in 2026, and to refit or refresh 15 to 20 locations, before accelerating its rollout from 2028 onwards.
And despite having formidable rivals such as B&Q, Screwfix and Toolstation, head of property Kate Thompson insists that “detailed analysis” it has carried out suggests there is “headroom in the market” for it to hit this number.
What makes an ideal Wickes store?
Wickes sales are split between its three customer segments – local trade, design & installation and DIY retail.
In terms of its expansion plans, Thompson highlights that this aspect of the business very much plays into where Wickes’ decides to open stores.
“It’s very interesting when it comes to location strategy because that means that some of the opportunities that are available if we were purely retail are not actually appropriate in all instances for Wickes,” she says.
“We have to be very selective and very considered in our approach to location planning to make sure that we can validly offer that balanced customer opportunity to deliver the most profitable store estate,” she adds.
Other locations Thompson highlights as being important focuses for new shops include “other roadside opportunities” and “some trade industrial locations” – as long as it can “deliver the balance” and it’s not so “trade oriented” that it removes some of its “retail DIY customer base”.
Accessibility and visibility is key
Additionally, Thompson highlights that “roadside prominence visibility” makes for an ideal Wickes store location.
She explains: “We do like a bit of external space, our customers love outdoor working and outdoor project centres are really useful for us.”
“We have customers in and out of our stores from 6:30 in the morning through till 8pm, so accessibility and visibility is – certainly for the tradesmen to get in and out quite quickly before they start their working day – a big criteria for us.”
Despite all this, the exec points out that Wickes is looking to be “really agile” and “flexible” with its store requirements at the moment “in order to grow”.
Wickes is a retailer with a huge breadth of products, with each of its stores carrying approximately 9,000 to 10,000 SKUs.
Despite this, in its latest full year results the brand cited its ability to “operate successfully with full range in smaller footprint stores”.
The group average size of Wickes store is 27k sq ft, while its smaller footprint stores range from 15 to 20k sq ft.
It noted that its smaller stores had given it access to a greater number of potential target locations, and that access to smaller catchments had enabled its new ambition to reach 300 stores.
According to the company, a number of its existing shops are “trading successfully” with the same SKU range while having a smaller footprint. It also reported they were generating “approximately the same average store EBITDA of c. £0.8m”.
Thompson explains: “With our latest drive for new space, we have evolved our format quite considerably.
“In a lot of our new stores, you will see we’ve got a slightly smaller footprint, but we have designed them so that the showroom, for example, goes on a mezzanine level.
“For those customers that are in the store for quite a long period of time seeing our design consultants, it takes that busyness away from that consultation and the rest of the store at the ground floor can then operate in its normal fashion.”
She says that Wickes then designs its ground floors based upon “project led missions”.
“If you think about a customer coming to a store with a particular project in mind, we ideally plan that route around the store so that if they’re looking at paint for example, they can easily see the paint brushes and things like that.
“That’s how we lay the stores out, keeping some of the heavier aggregates and timber and things that the tradesmen are more frequently purchasing all together as well.”
She adds: “We also keep the outdoor project centers or garden centers distinct. So the ease of navigation and actually finding everything you need for your project is front of mind as we design the store.”
Like all retailers in 2026, ecommerce is a big factor for Wickes’ “digitally-led service-enabled” business.
In March, Wickes unveiled a new retail media network called “Wickes Connected Retail Media,” underpinned by its investment in linking its digital arm with its 230 physical stores.
With 96 per cent of the company’s sales touching one of its physical stores and two-thirds being digitally enabled, it makes striking the right balance between physical stores and ecommerce more important than ever.
Thompson affirms that Wickes’ physical stores remain “considerably important” to the brand.
“I think a lot of our customers are still very much in the mindset that if you’re spending considerable sums of money on a kitchen or a bathroom, you want to touch and feel and actually get a grasp of exactly what it is that you’re investing in” she points out.
“So that’s a really important aspect of the physicality of our offer.”
In addition, she also highlights that its physical stores are important to its omnichannel offer.
“Our whole store estate acts as mini hubs for distribution, so we can offer delivery to all aspects of our customer base from our stores, either next day delivery or via the Wickes rapid rollout,” the exec explains.
“So that store network actually helps fulfill some of that omnichannel demand as well. So it’s ever important to our overall strategy to have a physical store estate.”
Ultimately, Thompson insists that Wickes is being “very considered and very strategic” in its approach to launching new stores.
And after an impressive set of annual results, the DIY giant seems to have a good chance of nailing its goals.
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