Home Depot is currently the largest home improvement retailer in the world. Co-Founded by Bernie Marcus and Arthur blank in 1978 and later went public in 1981. (Exibit* - Stock Performance). Home Depot currently sells products in more than 2,200 stores in North America reaching out to customers both through brick and motor stores as well as its online stores.
During 1990’s, the Home Depot was well renowned for its amazing customer service as orange- blooded entrepreneurial culture and outstanding customer service. Since the initiation Home Depot took a long-term approach by training its employees to form enduring customer relationships rather than push for incremental sales gains. This made the company grow very quickly becoming the fastest
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In liasion, the company’s products include services for home improvement professionals and contractors. This marketing mix from Home Depot highlights the quality of service they wish to provide. On the other hand, the majority of the products at the firm’s stores are from third parties, such as equipment manufacturers. Home Depot’s multi-faceted product mix include building materials, lawn and garden products, and home appliances, among other things. Kitchen and garden products accounted for nearly 27% of revenues in fiscal 2014 making them the best-grossing product categories. (Exhibit*- Revenue by product …show more content…
Besides marketing its customer service, the company markets different programs according to its three major types of customers. Some of them being,
Catch them young
Home Depot’s regularly organizes workshops and clinics. These are targeted at mostly the do-it-yourself customer. Workshops and clinics provide both a learning experience and an emotional connection for customers.The company boasts the world’s largest garden club. Over a million children have attended its kids workshops. These are potential future Home Depot customers. Loyalty programs
In 2013, the company introduced a new loyalty program called Pro Xtra. This program exclusively targets professional customers. Its benefits include product discounts, exclusive product offers, and a tool to track purchases and receipts online. It also enables tracking purchases by job via multiple payment types.
Private label credit accounts
Home Depot offers a co-branded credit card with Citibank (C). The impact of this partnership is considerable. Nearly 2.8 million new customers applied for a card in fiscal 2014. At the end of the year, the number of private label credit accounts numbered ~11
In the early 2000’s Lowe’s was rapidly intensifying its presence nationwide. The company carried a varied assortment of home improvement products and catered to the needs of retail as well as commercial business customers. Lowe’s expanded their reach by acquiring a 41-store chain, Eagle Hardware and Garden, and engaging in a strategic alliance with HGTV to obtain a more profound existence in their market (Rouse, 2005). By 2004, Lowe’s operated almost 1,000 stores with plans to continue expansion across the nation (Rouse, 2005). The company has a core competency in helping customers meet their home improvement needs at a low price. In order to use this core competency to gain a competitive advantage, the company has focused on key functional strategies. To continue their success, Lowe’s must specifically focus on marketing, logistics, and human resource management strategies.
Lowe’s employs more than 260,000 people in more than 1830 stores; these employees are trained to provide exceptional customer service as well as receiving up-to-date product knowledge to assist customers with their improvement needs. In addition, Lowe’s has upgraded store information technology infrastructure to assist employees in accessing product data faster and easier. This is accomplished by providing the sales team with computers that have Internet access, and Ipad’s and Iphone’s loaded with specialized apps (Lowes, 2014).
Home Depot was started in 1978 as a one-stop shopping for do-it-yourselfers. As the fastest growing retailer in U.S. History, Home Depot went public on NASDAQ in 1981, and moved to the New York Stock Exchange in 1984. By 1989, Home Depot had opened its 100th store. In 1994, Home Depot moved into Canada with the acquisition of Aikenhead’s, in 2001, they moved into Mexico with the acquisition of Total Home. Home Depot acquired The Home Way in China in 2006.
Lowe’s is leading the way by example. Lowe’s believes that creating long-term partnerships is a win-win situation for both sides of the deal. Lowe’s is the second largest home appliance retailer in the country, by working hand in hand for twenty-six years with Whirlpool, the largest marketer and manufacturer of home appliances. Whirlpool and Lowe’s have worked together to become unmatched in bringing their customers a high quality product and a very low competitive price. Through a tremendous logistical effort Whirlpool and Lowe’s have created a one of a kind Innovation Tour. A semi-trailer transforms itself into a functioning kitchen to show customers cutting edge appliances that will be available at Lowe’s in the future from Whirlpool and Kitchen Aid. As Lowe’s motto states, Lowe’s truly is “Improving Home Improvement”. (http://www.businesswire.com/)
Bed Bath and Beyond is currently the largest superstore domestics retailer, although their market share is only 4%. Competitors like Target, Wal-Mart and JC Penney offer a wider variety of merchandise such as apparel and electronics. Since 2002 growth has been a result of acquiring the Christmas Tree Shops and the Harmon Stores. In addition BBBY believes that their product offerings, customer service and advertising program have contributed to the company's financial success.
Bianchi, C. (2006). Home Depot in Chile: Case study. Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://www.carlospitta.com/Courses/Gestion%20Financiera%20Internacional/Cases/Home%20Depot%20Case.pdf
The company had to be the second largest retailer shop in the US; it has many advantages that come along. The customers well acknowledge the company and its brand have been well established.
Best Buy’s History & Main Characters: Best Buy is Minneapolis-based and is North America's leading specialty retailer of consumer electronics, personal computers, entertainment software and appliances. Throughout Best Buy's 37-year history, the company has maintained the tradition of making life fun and easy for customers and employees, while providing a significant return to partners and investors. It has 80,000 employees and over 550 stores in the U.S., in addition to the brands Best Buy Canada, Future Shop and Magnolia Hi-Fi. Their leadership is led by Dick Schulze, Founder and Chairman, Brad Anderson, Vice Chairman and CEO, Al Lenzmeier, President and COO, and Darren Jackson, Executive Vice President of Finance and CFO. Chairman Dick Schulze founded Best Buy in 1966 with the Sound of Music, an audio component systems store in St. Paul, Minn. In 1973, Vice Chairman and CEO Brad Anderson joined Sound of Music as a salesperson. The company quickly expanded into video products and computers, was renamed Best Buy in 1983, and became a public company in 1985. Best Buy’s revenues for fiscal year 2003 were $20.9 billion and net earnings of $622 million. It was ranked number 91 on the Fortune 500 in 2003 (Bestbuy.com). Best Buy stores are redefining the way customers shop by offering an unparalleled assortment of affordable, easy-to-use entertainment and technology products and services available through its network of more than 550 retail stores in 48 states and online at BestBuy.com. Best Buy is scheduled to open 60 new stores in fiscal 2003 and is on track to have 650 stores by fiscal 2005. Magnolia Hi-Fi is a high-end electronics retailer specializing in audio and video solutions for homes, ...
Opening its doors for the first time in 1946, Lowe’s is now the second largest home improvement chain in the world, operating over 1,800 stores in the United States, generating $56.2 billion in sales and $2.6 billion in net income for 2014 (Lowes Newsroom, 2015). Employing around 265,000 personal making them one of the top employers in the nation, there is no question that Lowe’s must be doing something right. According to Lowes Newsroom, “Lowe’s professional customers represent approximately 30 percent of total sales, approximately 16 million retail and professional customers are served each week. (2015, para 3) “Never Stop Improving”, is Lowe’s slogan; encouraging employees and customers to work together to maximize their in store
5. The thing that you will need to implement is the disabling of all unnecessary ports and services on the POS devices.
The company has established good relationships with most of its customers which has assisted it to create high level of brand and customer loyalty
The Article, "Renovating Home Depot," describes how, since the arrival of the new Chief Executive, Robert Nardelli, the business strategy has shifted to a more militaristic style. In the beginning, Home Depot was a "decentralized, entrepreneurial" business, and now is switching to a different management style. Nardelli loves to hire ex-soldiers, and is perhaps using the armed services as a role model for the new business structure. Under Nardelli's leadership, Home Depot is becoming more centralized and the good financial reports following this are signs that it a good strategy (Grow 50).
Given the dominance and fiercely competitive nature of Wal-Mart and Target within the big box discount retail industry, Dollar General avoided competing head-to-head with these larger rivals by differentiating a classic generic bu...
Second, the rapid development of the Home centers such as The Home Depot, with prices 30% less than the traditional hardware store made Black & Decker to lose market share to Makita. As per Exhibit 2 we could notice that in the home center channel that represent 25%of the trades...
Home Depot, well-known by its big, bright orange box logo, is a retailor of numerous popular brands of construction and home improvement products. Reach the Top® manufactures a popular brand of ladders and scaffolding already sold by Home Depot, and...