Home Depot is a home improvement retailer. The company sells a wide variety of building materials, home improvement, lawn and garden products. The company sells these products to do-it-yourself (DIY) customers, do-it-for-me (DIFM) customers, and professional customers who include professional remodelers, general contractors, repairmen, small business owners and tradesmen. As of 2009, the Company had 322,000 employees.

Product

• The company sells a wide assortment of building materials, home improvement, lawn and garden products such as patio sets, kitchen, doors, windows, grills, bath, lighting, fans and appliances.
• Home Depot provides an inventory of products specifically aimed at professional contractors, such as lumber, paint and painting supplies, plumbing equipment, cleaning and janitorial equipment.

Price

• Home Depot offers discounted prices via its online Savings Center where it cuts up to 20% off products such as play sets, kitchen faucets, and professional saws.
• The company has established “special buys” prices on appliances offering 25% discounts on products such as Washer & Dryer sets, and 20% off on Water & Ice Refrigerators.

Place

• The Home Depot’s main office is located in the US, in northwest Atlanta, Georgia.
• Home Depot has 3 stores in Georgia, 5 in Florida, three in California, as well as locations in Tennessee, New Jersey, and Indiana.
• The company has stores in Mexico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and Canada.

Home Depot Marketing Mix

Introduction

Home Depot originated in Atlanta Georgia in 1978 when Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank formed MB Associates. The company went public in 1981.The Home Depot stock moved from NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange three years later in 1984. The company then acquired Bowater’s Home Center. The company opened its first super-sized store in 1986. Would you like to take a lesson on the marketing mix?

Promotion

• In 2008 Home Depot marketed its “New Low Prices” campaign which featured rebates and discounted prices on over 1000 products.
• The company unveiled its “Aprons on the Floor” initiative designed to improve customer service by providing an increased presence of available.
• The company markets special offers via email newsletters, do it yourself workshops, and garden clubs.

Process

• Estimates are that the “Aprons on the Floor” initiative could allow the assignment of two additional hours of floor time per week for these supervisors. This is estimated to mean 4,000 extra hours of customer-service activities for Home Depot.
• Home Depot continues to transforming its information technology applications by converting their Canadian business to a new enterprise resource planning platform.
• Recent associate training and procedures concentrate on helping customers with problem solving, rather than simply securing sales.
• In recent years Home Depot is emphasized a more formalized decision-making process tempering some of the flexibility regional mangers had operated under.

Physical Evidence

• The average size of a Home Depot store is about 105,000 square feet of enclosed space. Each store has about 24,000 additional square feet in the outside garden area.
• The company’s stores stock approximately 30,000 to 40,000 different kinds of products.
• To improve merchandising of its chemical products area, Home Depot has employed new wayfinding signage program to brighten aisle and make easier to navigate between product categories.
• The garden center area was revised with New table fixture design with larger and brighter wayfinding signage.

.

People

• Frank Blake is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Home Depot.
• Tim Crow was hired as Executive Vice President of Human Resources and assigned to oversee all aspects of human resource management as well as address customer service issues.
• Home Depot plans to increase the number of full time employees and expand their training, while de-emphasizing the use of part-time workers.
• In 2008 the company issued success sharing checks in excess of $88 million to our hourly associates a new
  record.
• The company places strong on value on its associates and provides performance based merit increases as well as a 401(k) matching program.

Disclaimer:
This case study has been compiled from information freely available from public sources. It is merely intended to be used for educational purposes only.