The founders of The Home Depot: Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank partnered with Ken
Langone, an investment banker, and Pat Farrah, a merchandising guru, back in 1978. The concept was to build a one-stop shop for the “do-it-yourself” customers. The first Home Depot store was opened in Atlanta, Georgia on June 22, 1979. The initial few stores were built at
60,000 square feet per store, stocking 25,000 SKUs, which was much larger than the competition. In order to make the stores look well stocked, empty boxes were piled to the ceiling. In addition, an exceptional service was extended to The Home Depot customers since inception. Knowledgeable and appropriately trained sales associates exhibited the best customer service possible in the home improvement
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(Home Depot, 2015)
The Home Depot went public on NASDAQ in 1981 and moved to the New York Stock
Exchange in 1984. The fastest growth was realized between the years 1980 and 2000.
Undoubtedly, The Home Depot the world’s largest home improvement retailer with fiscal retail sales in 2014 of $83.2 billion and earnings of $6.3 billion. The company currently has more than
2,200 stores in the United States, Canada and Mexico. (Home Depot, 2015) The Home Depot opened in Canada by acquiring Aikenhead’s Home Improvement Centers in 1994, and it arrived in Mexico in 2001 by procuring Total Home. In 2006, the company also acquired The Home
Way, a 12-store chain, in China however, this venture was unsuccessful, resulting in closure of the stores in 2011. (Wikipedia, 2015) The company currently leads the home improvement market in the United States with approximately 27.2% market share, while Lowe’s, the only
The Home Depot Financial Analysis
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major competitor to offer a similar product line, comes in next at around 18.4% value share.
(Marketrealist, 2015) In Canada The Home Depot possesses the highest portion of the