The Home Depot, Inc. (The Home Depot) operates as a home improvement retailer worldwide.
The company offers its customers a wide assortment of building materials, home improvement products, lawn and garden products, décor products, and facilities MRO products, in stores and online. The company also provides a number of services, including home improvement installation services, and tool and equipment rental.
The company operates various stores located throughout the U.S. (including the Commonw...
The Home Depot, Inc. (The Home Depot) operates as a home improvement retailer worldwide.
The company offers its customers a wide assortment of building materials, home improvement products, lawn and garden products, décor products, and facilities MRO products, in stores and online. The company also provides a number of services, including home improvement installation services, and tool and equipment rental.
The company operates various stores located throughout the U.S. (including the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the territories of the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam), Canada, and Mexico. The Home Depot stores average approximately 104,000 square feet of enclosed space, with approximately 24,000 additional square feet of outside garden area. The company also maintains a network of distribution and fulfillment centers, as well as a number of e-commerce websites in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
In fiscal 2024, the company acquired SRS Distribution Inc. (SRS), a leading residential specialty trade distribution company engages in the distribution of residential and commercial roofing products, complementary building products, landscape supplies and swimming pool supplies serving the professional roofer, landscaper, and pool contractor. SRS is organized as three different lines of business: roofing and complementary building products, landscape, and pool.
Strategy
In fiscal 2024, the company’s strategy allowed it to continue to execute at a high level despite continued pressure on home improvement demand from high interest rates and macroeconomic uncertainty. The company continued its strategic investments aimed at creating an interconnected, frictionless shopping experience that enables its customers to seamlessly blend the digital and physical worlds, growing its market share with Pros through its ecosystem of capabilities, and building new stores.
Customers
The company serves two primary customer groups — consumers (including both Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and Do-It-For-Me (DIFM) customers) and Pros — and have developed varying approaches to meet their diverse needs:
DIY Customers
These customers are typically homeowners who purchase products and complete their own projects and installations. The company’s associates assist these customers both in its stores and through online resources and other media designed to provide product and project knowledge. The company also offers a variety of clinics and workshops to share this knowledge and to build an emotional connection with its DIY customers. As the preferences and behaviors of the company’s DIY customers are changing, it is investing in capabilities to better meet the evolving expectations of these customers.
Professional Customers (or ‘Pros’)
These customers are primarily professional renovators/remodelers, general contractors, small to medium homebuilders, maintenance professionals, handymen, property managers, building service contractors and specialty tradespeople, such as electricians, landscapers, plumbers, painters, pool contractors, and roofers. These customers build, renovate, remodel, repair, and maintain residential properties, multifamily properties, hospitality properties, and commercial facilities, including education, healthcare, government, institutional, and office buildings.
The company has a number of initiatives designed to drive growth with Pros, including those working on both simple and complex projects. In fiscal 2024, the company acquired SRS, which sells products to specialty trade roofers, landscapers, and pool contractors. The company remains focused on providing a customized online experience, a dedicated sales force, a broad assortment of Pro-focused products and brands, an extensive delivery network, its Pro Xtra loyalty program, and enhanced credit offerings. Building on the company’s historical strength as a destination for urgent purchase needs, it is investing in differentiated capabilities that will help the company better serve its Pros’ complex purchase needs, including differentiated fulfillment options, additional trade credit offerings including the company’s Pro House Account program, more showroom space, and an enhanced order management system. The company also provides Maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products and related value-added services to multifamily, hospitality, healthcare, and government housing facilities, among others, primarily through its subsidiary HD Supply.
DIFM Customers
Intersecting the company’s DIY customers and its Pros are its DIFM customers. These customers are typically homeowners who use Pros to complete their projects or installations. The company offers installation services in a variety of categories, such as flooring, water heaters, bath, garage doors, cabinets, cabinet makeovers, countertops, sheds, furnaces and central air systems, and windows. DIFM customers can purchase these services in the company’s stores, online, or in their homes through in-home consultations. In addition to serving its DIFM customer needs, the company focuses on the Pros who perform services for these customers helps it drive higher product sales.
Products and Services
A typical Home Depot store stocks approximately 30,000 to 40,000 items during the year, including both national brand name and proprietary products, across the following merchandising departments: Appliances, Bath, Building Materials, Electrical, Flooring, Hardware, Indoor Garden, Kitchen & Blinds, Lighting, Lumber, Millwork, Outdoor Garden, Paint, Plumbing, Power, and Storage & Organization. The company’s online product offerings complement its stores by serving as an extended aisle, and the company offers a significantly broader product assortment through its websites and mobile applications, including homedepot.com, the company’s primary website; homedepot.ca and homedepot.com.mx, its websites in Canada and Mexico, respectively; hdsupply.com, the company’s website for its MRO products and related services; the company’s websites for custom window coverings, including blinds.com, justblinds.com and americanblinds.com; thecompanystore.com, its website featuring textiles and decor products; and srsdistribution.com, heritagelandscapesupplygroup.com, and heritagepoolsupplygroup.com, the company’s websites serving the roofing and building materials, landscape and pool product needs of specialty Pros, respectively.
The company offers a number of services for its customers, including installation services for its DIY and DIFM customers, as noted above. The company also provides tool and equipment rentals at locations across the U.S. and Canada, providing value and convenience for both Pros and consumers. To improve the customer experience and continue to grow this differentiated service offering, the company is continuing to invest in more tool rental locations, more tools, and better technology.
The company continues to enhance its capabilities to provide its customers with a frictionless interconnected shopping experience across the company’s stores, branches, online, on the job site, and in their homes, focusing on continued investments in its websites and mobile apps to enhance the customer experience.
Digital Experience
Mobile users expect more simplicity and relevancy in their digital interactions. In addition to supporting the company’s DIY and DIFM customers on their shopping journeys, mobile devices can also help serve the needs of Pros working on complex projects.
The company has also enhanced the ‘shopability’ of an online product by including more information on the product’s landing page, including related products and/or parts of a collection, as well as various fulfillment options.
The company focuses on improving search capabilities, site functionality, category presentation, product content, such as customer product review summaries, speed to checkout, and fulfillment options has yielded higher traffic, better conversion and continued sales growth. The company is continuing to focus on connecting marketing activities with the online and in-store experiences to create seamless engagement across channels.
Store Experience
The company continues to leverage the investments made in its stores over the past several years to operate effectively and meet customer expectations. These investments included wayfinding signage and store refresh packages; self-service lockers, online order storage areas and curbside service to enable convenient online order pickup options; electronic shelf label capabilities; and the re-design of front-end areas, including reconfigured service desks, improved layouts in checkout areas, and expanded and enhanced self-checkout options. The company has also empowered its customers with additional self-help tools, including mobile app-enabled store navigation. The company’s app provides store-specific maps that allow customers to pinpoint the exact location of an item on their mobile devices.
Intellectual Property
The Home Depot trademark has significant value and is an important factor in the marketing of its products, e-commerce, stores and business. The company has registered or applied for registration of trademarks, service marks, copyrights and internet domain names, both domestically and internationally, for use in its business, including the company’s proprietary brands, such as HDX, Husky, Hampton Bay, Home Decorators Collection, Glacier Bay, Vigoro, Everbilt and Lifeproof.
Seasonality
The company’s business is subject to seasonal influences. Generally, the company’s highest volume of sales occurs in its second fiscal quarter, as it moves into the spring season in the regions in which the company operates (for the year ended February 2025).
History
The Home Depot, Inc., a Delaware corporation, was founded in 1978. The company was incorporated in 1978.