Executive Summary: The House Depot Direct Stock Buy Plan

Home Depot is the fastest growing retailer in the U.S. by some accounts. It has a fascinating history of innovation and entrepreneurship. The company had some difficulties in the mid-2000s that some attribute to cultural clashes. However, during this period the company was able to take full advantage of the housing boom. Yet when the bubble burst, Home Depot was forced to claim substantial losses. Despite these loses Home Depot has weathered the storm fairly well and is in prime position to take advantage of an economic recovery; if it ever comes.

B&B Consulting Services was requested to evaluate, assess, analyze and make recommendations to Lowe’s Home Improvement in the areas of strategy for growth improvement. The following information will give Lowe’s a better understanding of its company and what improvements can be made in the short-term and long-term.

The home improvement sector of the economy is large with two major players in the industry and with many smaller local and regional competitors. These two major competitors are Home Depot and Lowe’s. These two companies account for over $110 billion in total sales each year. Even though sales have gone down over the past few years due to the downturn in the economy they have not gone down nearly as much as home sales and this is due to more people deciding to do more home improvements to their own home then buying a new home. Both of these companies have been able to keep up sales and increase them year over year by improving current

Home Depot caters to the three categories of customers. Do-It-Yourself Customers (DIY): These customers are typically home owners who purchase products and complete their own projects and installations. Do-It-For-Me Customers (DIFM): These customers are typically home owners who purchase materials themselves and hire third parties to complete the project or installation, or both. Home Depot arranges for the installation of a variety of The Home Depot products through qualified independent contractors. Professional Customers: These customers are professional remodelers, general contractors, repairmen, small business owners and

From its roots as a vision in 1978 of a home improvement superstore The Home Depot has become a giant in this sector. Influenced by the “do-it-yourself” customer or the corporate contractors each policy and business plan is developed with a consumer stake holder emphasis. As its founders stated “We’re in the people business” (Planning), and this is maintained in its business structure today. Set up as a direct to consumer warehouse of home improvement and building products

Home Depot’s corporate-level strategy is one of internal growth. This conclusion was reached based on the increased focus that Home Depot has placed on growing its existing online and traditional retail operations. Between 2016 and 2018, Home Depot is expected to invest approximately four billion dollars into improvements in its online and physical retail locations in order to make both work more synergistically and grow sales (Petro, 2016). Home Depot hopes that these investments will continue to increase sales at both its physical and digital retail locations, thereby growing the company without adding significant numbers of physical locations.

Home Depot (HD) is a home improvement retailer specializing in a high volume and low cost strategy. HD offers a variety of products spanning from lawn and garden to home improvement. Table 1 compares Home Depot to Lowes. HD overall market cap is more than 2 times Lowes. HD tends to be more affected by movement in the market than Lowes as demonstrated by their Beta values.

The Home Depot knows that they must stay on top of technology and management must be able to organize this function in a way that surpasses the competition, pleases the customers, and keep the employees satisfied.

Home Depot is a for profit organization that is a family owned organization that was started with the beliefs that all their products should be natural and non-toxic to the user and the environment. It was started by an individual with an idea to be different from the rest. It was built on the principle of creating value for their stockholders while never forgetting their values. They seek to be profitable, responsible and balance the needs of communities. The Home Depot 's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor 's 500 index. The Home Depot 's proposition was to build home-improvement warehouses, larger than any of their competitors ' facilities.

The Home Depot (Ticker: HD) is the world’s largest home-improvement retailer along with being an American Fortune 50 company. The company operates 2,259 retail building supply/home improvement “warehouse” type stores all across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Home Depot has over 340,000 team members and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. The average store size is just over 100,000 square feet along with an additional 24,000 square feet set aside for seasonal gardening.

The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is a home improvement, construction products and services retailer operating over 2,000 big-box stores in the United States and abroad. The Home Depot was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank with the vision of one-stop shopping for do-it-yourself (DIY) customers, installation services for do-it-for-me (DIFM) customers and competitive products for the professional market. Their DIFM installation programs include products such as carpeting, flooring, cabinets, countertops, and water heaters. In addition, the company provides installation of various professional products like generators and HVAC systems.

First, the company offers mail-in-rebates to encourage customers to buy a particular product in a lower price. However, Lowe’s could still make higher profits because not all customers who made the purchase submit a rebate. Customers might value their time more and just accept the out-the-door price. Lowe’s can use the rebate offer to collect customer’s data from the rebate form. There are a couple of advantages than can be gained by collecting customer data. By looking at purchase history, Lowe’s can tailor their promotions according to customer demand. Moreover, by having customer’s contact information, Lowe’s can send out more promotion offers through emails or mailing catalogs to houses. One of the most beneficial way of promoting is through email marketing. Customers can be informed about exclusive deals that last for only a time period, discounts, and coupons.

The Home Depot Inc. was founded in 1978 and is the world’s largest home improvement retailer and the second largest retailer in the United States. The sales for the fiscal year 2000 were $45.7 billion, compared to $38.4 billion in fiscal 1999. As of January 2001, the company was operating 1,134 retail stores in forty-seven states, six Canadian provinces, Puerto Rico, Chile and Argentina.

Target Corp shares made solid augmentations after it upheld cash related aces that clients were starting to come back to its U.S. stores, endorsing that the effect of a gigantic information break may not be as honest to goodness as some had dreaded.

Home Depot (TheHomeDepot, n.d.) began as a two store operation in Atlanta, GA in 1979. The concept was the brainchild of Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, with inspiration from investment banker Ken Langone and well know merchandising expert Pat Farrah. They envisioned a one stop, do it yourself store that carried most of the products needed to do common home care projects.