From its inception, Home Depot has operated from a platform which quickly took this industry by storm.\u00a0 The company\u2019s founders saw that by creating a new type of retail scale, new for this industry at least, Home Depot could radically change the marketplace. The founders saw themselves bringing consumers and manufacturers together as had never been seen before in this market.\u00a0 In fact from the start, the newly christened Home Depot had more in common with Walmart than it had with any of its intra-industry peers\/rivals.<\/p>\n
Well financed, the early Home Depot was able flex its young muscles with surprising alacrity when it came to dealing with manufacturers.\u00a0 In fact the infant company quickly saw that it could enforce demands on manufacturers as had been planned from the outset. The new big box, home center warehouse format was an instant hit with consumers who quickly picked up on the Home Depot platform of offering everyday low prices from a dazzling product selection, from an even more dizzying sized retail venue.\u00a0 As consumer sales leaped, the company was easily able to expand its store presence nationwide and shortly across international borders north and south.<\/p>\n
As manufacturers observed the new format\u2019s enormous popularity and rapid growth, they realized that it was almost futile to resist the buying terms which The Home Depot demanded.\u00a0 Most manufacturers simply feared the consequences of being left out of the excitement and of course the income.\u00a0 Several manufacturers were unable to keep up with the ever tougher demands and dejectedly left the fold.\u00a0 Others could be dismissed seemingly on a whim.\u00a0 Meanwhile other retailers struggled to catch up.<\/p>\n
Of course, Home Depot\u2019s rapid rise was due to its quick acceptance and growing popularity with consumers.\u00a0 Customers found an incredible variety of product combined with very affordable prices, with which few competitors could compete.\u00a0 Plus, the Depot had created a system of training a generally impressive floor staff so that most customers could be given the help they needed, both in terms of product and instruction, to proceed with their home projects.<\/p>\n
This progressive growth and dominance continued as a few competitors emerged and others adjusted to life against Home Depot for well more than an eventful decade.\u00a0 Then the founders left as incredibly rich men and a carefully chosen successor was put in place.\u00a0 The company soon abandoned basic founding principles.\u00a0 Profits became the chief corporate focus.\u00a0 Shortcuts replaced many of the founder\u2019s principles, especially in terms of associate hiring, training and customer service.<\/p>\n
This was followed by a downturn in performance which approached its apex during the subprime crisis and hit it during the recession.\u00a0 Investors rebelled and management gave way to the third generation.<\/p>\n
New CEO Frank Blake immediately announced that the company would return to its roots.\u00a0 He took the lead and quickly sold off large pro-oriented operations which had been a part of the company\u2019s leaving its founder\u2019s roots.\u00a0\u00a0 He also shuttered what seemed extraneous, ancillary retail operations such as Home Depot\u2019s EXPO Design Centers.\u00a0 Blake took advantage of the recessionary unemployment horror and aggressively set off a campaign to bring talented carpenters, plumbers, electricians and qualified builders to the Home Depot selling floor to the delight of previously turned off customers.<\/p>\n
A couple of months ago, this space featured an insight discussing Home Depot\u2019s initiative to enter the much coveted world of same day shipping.\u00a0 This is an area being targeted initially by the likes of Walmart, Amazon and eBay.\u00a0 Success has been elusive, costly and challenging.<\/p>\n
Just a few years ago, most industry observers felt that this industry had relatively little to gain in terms of sales from the Internet.\u00a0 Products such as lumber, flooring and major appliances, to name a few, were seen as difficult fits for web-based sales, services and delivery.\u00a0 Now Home Depot has committed to a holy grail of Internet transactions.<\/p>\n
Home Depot is attempting to clear the next step in its comprehensive selling evolution.\u00a0 As many companies hand out executive titles which point to an omni-channel selling focus, Home Depot has opened its first direct<\/span> fulfillment center.\u00a0 The facility covers approximately one million sq. ft. and is located less than an hour south of the company\u2019s Atlanta headquarters.\u00a0 This is the first of three direct fulfillment centers the company plans to build in the next two years.<\/p>\n The next two facilities will be strategically placed in California and Ohio.\u00a0 They are expected to stock over 100,000 products and will have the ability to ship product to 90% of the US zip codes within 48 hours.<\/p>\n The facilities are designed from the perspective of serving customers rather than the convenience of the company.\u00a0 They feature same day order picking with an emphasis on closely monitoring in-stock levels to greatly limit out-of- stock situations.<\/p>\n The facilities are being designed to work in tandem with the company\u2019s vast network of stores to offer a seamless to-customer experience.\u00a0 This is largely based on Home Depot\u2019s current eCommerce experience, in which about a third of customers ordering online, pick up orders shipped to stores or product already waiting in stores.<\/p>\n Not to be forgotten is the bane of many non-brick and mortar companies, the cost of returns. Consumers resent having to pay for shipping returns on products which are defective or sent through any number of order fulfillment errors.\u00a0 To this Home Depot\u2019s policy of accepting returns of online purchases at the store level has already proved an overwhelming success.\u00a0 The investment in these new systems will only serve to increase that simplicity and satisfaction.<\/p>\n Another key feature Home Depot is growing to contribute to a customer-friendly, seamless experience include the ability to offer an almost infinite number of products which originate from other sources and are available and shipped through Home Depot.\u00a0 This could grow Home Depot into a true mass merchandiser while increasing profits significantly.<\/p>\n For years Amazon has set its sights on siphoning sales from other retailers. \u00a0Home Depot has been on the losing end of this for some time.\u00a0 With Home Depot\u2019s omni-channel plans now set into motion, a siphoning in reverse is likely about to take place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From its inception, Home Depot has operated from a platform which quickly took this industry by storm.\u00a0 The company\u2019s founders saw that by creating a new type of retail scale, new for this industry at least, Home Depot could radically change the marketplace. The founders saw themselves bringing consumers and manufacturers together as had never… Continue reading Home Depot Puts Its Money Where Its Omni Channel Is<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-3701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-hardware","tag-insight","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}