Value Line Publishing - Case Analysis

The growing trend of home improvement has perpetuated a larger demand for box store home improvement shops such as Home Depot and Lowe’s. There are several types of companies that contribute to the booming renovation industry. Home Depot and Lowe’s provide all the

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.

Companies in the retail industry operate in a high price elasticity environment as there is not much product differentiation to leverage. Buyers face almost no switching cost if they chose a substitute offering better value. On the contrary, large and diverse population making small purchases works in favor of the industry. No one individual or a small group has the power to significantly impact the industry, but overall buyers enjoy have a high bargaining power in the industry.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers: The bargaining power of suppliers in the industry is low. There are numerous suppliers in this industry, and the large department stores have the ability to negotiate for the lowest prices. In addition, the switching costs are low, as the products are not highly differentiated. There are a large volume of purchases in the industry, allowing the department stores to exert even more power over the suppliers.

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.

Lowe’s has entered into the Canadian and Australian market in attempts to gain unclaimed market shares. It has not gained enough traction in the Australian market but has done well in Canada. Lowe’s should focus more on expansion in Canada because of the strong need for Home Improvement stores. Lowe’s has the opportunity to gain more market share by developing a mobile application that allows users to view all items offered and what deals are taking place. Customer service is a top priority in any retail industry, Lowe’s needs to improve this dramatically. Lowe’s needs knowledgeable, friendly-staff that go beyond just showing a customer where a product is in the store. By doing so, Lowe’s will retain more customers and its competitors will lose shares of the market.

Lowe’s is the 14th largest retailer in the United States and is presently planning aggressive expansion, opening a new store on average every three days. Lowe's revenue growth is primarily a function of penetration of the market increase resulting from a burst of new locations instead of the same store sales. Although Lowe’s has grown tremendously, it remains half the size of Home Depot and has serious debt burden that increases its risk level drastically. Lowe’s is Home Depot’s largest competitor because both companies have the same products, services, and enormous warehouse formats. In this major retail market Lowe’s and Home Depot stores go toe

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

Lowe’s is the world’s second largest home improvement retailer and operated 952 stores in forty five states at their fiscal year ending January 30, 2004. The company is currently in the midst of the most aggressive expansion in its history with 130 new stores opened in 2003 and another 140 slated for this year. Lowe’s saw 2003 sales reach approximately $30.8 billion, due largely to their focus on the retail customers and home-improvement projects.

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.

Internet sales are growing rapidly within the industry, and amongst all retail, eventually they might start to see Amazon as a major competitor. Stores like Home Depot and Lowe's have interactive websites, with the ability purchase items not seen in stores, how to guides, project ideas, and quotes for specific jobs. Trends in the industry are moving to more green products, private label and exclusive brands, more interactive retail experience with new payment options. This would utilize modern technology to increase sales. Demand which has been driven by home remodeling and building doesn’t fluctuate too much, typically minor shifts within the economic cycles.

In order to further strengthen its holdings on the home improvement market, Lowe’s Companies, Inc. has restructured the company’s vision to conform to meet the ever-changing needs of its customers. Lowe’s extensive research has led it to include a well lit sales floor, informative in-store displays, exclusive and proprietary brands, and an ingenious store layout just to name of the few changes. This new vision is not only centered on the store itself, Do-It-Yourselfers and Commercial Business Customers have many ways to satisfy their needs conveniently though stores nationwide by placing orders over the phone, fax, or from the improved Lowe’s web site.

Wholesale and retail distribution in the U.S. carpet and rug industry has gone through a lot of instabilities since the 1980’s. There have been three major competitive trends that occurred within the industry. The first trend to occur happened in the mid 1980’s when the

The first company that will be analyzed is Home Depot. Home Depot's total assets increased to $40,518 million from $40,125, an increase of 0.9%. These figures, however, are lower than the value of total assets on the books for HD for the prior three years. The 2008 fiscal year was the point where Home Depot had the highest asset levels at $44.324 billion. The recession has been the biggest culprit for the decline in the size of Home Depot. All of the firms in the building supplies industry have a strong relationship between their sales and the strength of the housing market, as home purchases are a major impetus for home renovation projects. Home Depot's size declined with the onset of slowness in the housing market, and it is expected that its size will not begin to increase until the housing market recovers. Home Depot management has noted that there are signs of life in the US housing market, and that this should be taken as an encouraging sign for the company (Isidore, 2012). Indeed, the company's balance sheet has grown in size throughout the 2013 fiscal year, so that the latest Q3 total

Threat of Substitutes: Few substitutes such as bars for hard liquor, restaurant for food, etc. The threat is low because product sold depends upon customers taste and preference and there is minimal product differentiation.