Home Depot And Lowes: A Comparative Analysis

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.

Home Depot has clearly set itself up to be successful in the recent upswing in the housing markets. Their technology upgrade has proven to be successful in keeping stores stocked and employees more engaged with helping the customers.

Lowe’s (LOW) and Home Depot (HD) are competitors in the every growing market of Home Improvement. The following analysis of each company will examine the home improvement industry, the individual companies, their operating philosophies, their financial strengths or weaknesses, and a final conclusion on which company would be a better long-term investment.

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.

Established as the older company of the two, Lowe’s ranks forty-second as a Fortune 500 company. Established in 1946 as a small hardware business, Lowe’s has grown into a 40,000 product, global market enterprise that consist of 1,710 stores nationwide expanding into the countries of Canada, Mexico and Australia (Lowe's Internal, 2010) Home Depot, founded in 1978, is the fastest growing retailer in the United States. Ranked twenty-ninth as a Fortune 500 company, Home Depot continues to remain the number one do-it-yourself retail store in America. These two companies may sell products of the same nature, but comparing their Code of Ethics is their way of setting themselves apart. (Home Depot Internal, 2009)

Lowe’s Company has been in business for over 60 years. The company is the second largest home improvement retailer in the world and employs more than 215,000 employees. The company’s home base is Mooresville, North Carolina. Standard & Poor ranks Lowe’s as #48 . Presently, Lowe’s stock, which is identified on the New York Stock Exchange as LOW, is selling for right under $20 a share. This price has been consistent and is comparable to their biggest competitor Home Depot, Inc whose stock has remained steady at $23.

Lowe’s is continuously being threatened by Home Depot in losing market shares. It is a constant battle; Lowe’s and Home Depot are expanding substantially in attempts to take over territory claimed by the other as well as unclaimed territory. The biggest weakness for Lowe’s is its lack of customer service. Customers are leaving Lowe’s in search of credible, knowledgeable service which is found at Home Depot.

Lowe’s is part of an oligopoly type market structure. An oligopoly is a situation in which a particular market is controlled by a small group of firms with at least two firms controlling the market. The main key to behavior in an oligopoly is that companies must take into account what other companies will do. In perfect competition, firms are price-takers and can ignore other firms (Basic Economics, 2009). The home improvement retail stores are an industry that includes Home Depot, Lowe’s, Builders Square, and in other states, Menards.  Smaller companies have to try to compete with them to stay in business.

ROA is considered the best overall indicator of the efficiency of assets used in a company. Home Depot and Lowe’s ROA ratio both moved down due to the downturn in the industry but Home Depot was able to improve 2010.

Home Depot and Lowe's believe in big warehouse space, an informal atmosphere and low prices. They are able to offer the lower prices to consumers due to their purchasing power. Inventory differs depending on the story type, home centers typically sock more lumber and building supplies, as their biggest customers are contractors. They pay their floor employees minimum wage, and keep overall costs down by keeping them as part time employees.

$66.2 billion and $47.2 billion, respectively, which means Home Depot's returns were approximately $5.3 billion

Looking forward, Lowe’s plans include expansion, with more than 100 store openings in line until the year 2004. Although it was not explicitly stated that it will continue to expand until 2006, the analysts assumed the contrary, that is a continuous expansion in order to strategize and reach Home Depot’s level in terms of scale.

Lowe’s Companies, Inc. is the fourteenth largest retailer in America, and overall the world’s second largest home improvement retailer. They are the 108th ranked corporation on the Fortune 500 top corporations list. With an impressive in store stock of 40,000 home improvement items on hand, ranging from lumber to Home décor items, plus an additional 400,000 home improvement items available through a special order program. Lowe’s provides a onetime stop for all home improvement needs, for both the Do-It-Yourselfer, and the ever-expanding market of the Commercial Business Customer.

Lowe 's is the world 's second largest home improvement retailer and the 14th largest retailer in the U.S. Lowe 's is in the midst of an aggressive expansion plan, opening a new store on average every three days. Lowe 's is an active supporter of the communities it serves. Through the Lowe 's Heroes volunteer programs and the Home Safety Council, it provides help to civic groups with public safety projects and share important home safety and fire prevention information with neighborhoods across the country. Lowe 's has been a publicly held company since October 10, 1961. Its stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with shares trading under the ticker symbol LOW.Lowe’s Companies, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a home improvement retailer in the United States and Canada. The company provides a range of products and services for home decoration, maintenance, repair, remodeling, and property maintenance. It offers home improvement products in various categories, such as appliances, lumber, paint, flooring, building materials, millwork, lawn and landscape products, fashion plumbing, hardware, lighting, tools, seasonal living, rough plumbing, outdoor power equipment, cabinets and countertops, nursery, rough electrical, home environment, home organization, and windows and walls. The company’s products also include boards, panel products, irrigation pipes, vinyl sidings, and ladders. It serves

From the consumer report I learned that, of the three stores, Lowe's has the best reviews because it has a larger selection of appliances and it has a large number of reviews which are sorted by relevant topics. It received a four-star rating. The other two, Sears and Amazon both received positive reports as well, but only had three-star ratings. Amazon gets a larger percentage of their customers to give reviews which puts it a little above Sears. Amazon's reviews are great at putting both the pros and cons as well as comparisons so it's easier to figure out if the product is as it is advertised.