Home Depot Boosts Online Sales 21% and Passes One Million Pro Members

Need to Know

• Home Depot’s revenue for 2019 was $110.2 billion, $2 billion more than 2018.
• The home supply chain grew online sales by 20.8% in its fiscal Q4, and 21.4% for the entire year.
• For over 50% of e-commerce orders, customers pick up orders in-store.
• Home Depot has onboarded more than one million Home Depot Pro members.
• The retailer is in the middle of an $11 billion digital transformation to blend their brick-and-mortar and e-commerce business.
• Home Depot is the largest home improvement chain in the world, employing 400,000 associates and operates more than 2,200 retail stores across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Analysis

Home Depot is in the middle of three years of heavy investment ($11 billion) to integrate its brick-and-mortar and e-commerce business in a strategy called “One Home Depot.”

After heavy pressure to perform in the midst of transformation, Home Depot has been trading at a record high and beat out Q4 estimates. Sales have been especially strong online:

“Online sales grew 20.8% in the quarter, and 21.4% for the year, and over 50% of the time, our customers choose to pick up their order in a store. This is the power of the interconnected retail strategy,” says Craig Menear, president and CEO of Home Depot.

The retailer’s sales often mirror the housing market, but January’s home constructions dropped less than forecasted and home permits hit a 13-year high.

The “One Home Depot” strategy announced in 2017 is the main culprit for the chain’s recent success, which has seen the retailer step up its digital shopping and in-person experiences through better search functionality, connected in-store labels that allow customers to check out the item’s ratings online, and further employee training. 

The retailer has seen 238% improvements in customer engagement thanks to data personalization, as well as increasing blends of in-person and digital shopping experiences with AR technology by Apple. Home Depot also had one of its biggest single days of mobile app downloads in December, after it launched a new marketing campaign.

“The customer’s ability to start that shopping experience in the digital world and research product and/or purchase product there, all of that is leading to the kind of performance that we saw in the fourth quarter … We’re excited about our e-commerce business as part of a whole interconnected retail strategy,” said Menear.

Home Depot stores offer up to 35,000 products in-person and more than 1 million products online and announced that it recently passed one million Home Depot Pro members, who are construction professionals.