The team at DIY Extra spend quite a lot of money on tools and materials each month, and increasingly we are finding the best deals online. Here are our five favourite online DIY Stores, in no particular order, along with why we like them and what they provide the customer.
1. Tooled-up
Tooled-up offer a massive range of tools and accessories, for both the diy-er and the professional user. They regularly have mid-season sales and you can always find bargains and special offers in their clearance section. Everything is easy to find, either using the search engine or choosing your required category from the simple navigation. Sign up for their newsletter and you will receive regular (sometime daily) emails showing the latest offers and hot deals. The checkout is fast and simple to use and delivery times are excellent (in our experience). Perhaps more importantly, questions are answered promptly and in depth.
2. Wickes
Wickes offer a wide range of tools and materials for the diy-er, but also offer a great selection of decorative and storage products such as lighting, shelving and curtain poles. As you would expect, the website is slick and very nicely illustrated throughout, meaning that choosing the right product is easier. We also really like their Create The Look section, where they show different trends and styles for various room in a house, letting you draw inspiration from the experts. Once you have signed up, the checkout is quick and simple to use, showing you all the price and delivery options clearly. Wickes, like most other DIY stores online, regularly have offers and deals, and there is always something new catching your eye on the homepage.
3. B & Q
B & Q are probably the biggest and most well known company on this list, offering a massive range of building materials, plumbing supplies, decorating products and much more. There are certainly others on this list who offer a wider range of tools, both hand and power, but B&Q do what they do well. The website is not the easiest of our top 5 to use, and is slow compared to almost all of our other favourites, but the quality is superb. Every product is well explained and it is easy to check the specification of anything you are looking at.
4. Focus DIY
Focus offers a broader range of products than any of the other DIY stores, even selling camping equipment and office furniture. As a hardcore DIY store, it is not the best, but as a place to find the things to finish off your home, it is very good indeed. The website is nice to use and every page loads quickly. There are always loads of offers, on both tools and furniture, and they are always easy to find. The focus website does not have the bells and whistles of some of the others in our list, but it works and that is what matters.
5. Screwfix
Screwfix is famous for its massive range of tools and materials and for having some of the lowest prices around, and rightly so. The website is not the most beautiful you will ever see, but it is fast and set up to make buying your tools and materials quick and easy. Screwfix seems to have a large and loyal customer base, and this is reflected in the user reviews which accompany nearly every product description. This sort of user recommendation is brilliant if you are not exactly sure what you need for a particular job. Screwfix has a large clearance section all year round and you can find some really good bargains if you know what to look for. Current bargains could save you over 90% on the previous prices (not a bad deal!) Screwfix also offers a very large and active forum, where you can ask advice on tools and equipment, amongst other things.
