The Home Depot is the second largest retailer in the United States, behind Wal-Mart, and third largest retailer in the world, behind Wal-Mart and French-based company Carrefour.

History

The company was founded in 1978 in Atlanta, Georgia by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank after the two quit their positions at Handy Dan, and grew rapidly, with sales topping $1 billion annually by 1986.

In 2000, Marcus and Blank retired. Robert (Bob) L. Nardelli became chairman, president & chief executive officer of The Home Depot. He had previously spent almost 30 years at General Electric, his career culminating as president and CEO of GE Power Systems.

The Home Depot today

Home Depot stores are large, averaging 105,000 ft² (9,755 m²) and warehouse-style, stocking a large range of supplies. The company color is a bright orange (PMS 165, CMYK 60M100Y), on signs, equipment and employee aprons.

Its 2005 sales totaled US$81.5 billion. Despite the 11% increase in revenue, it dropped one spot to #14 on the 2006 FORTUNE magazine's FORTUNE 500 list (it was #13 in 2005 on $73.1 billion sales in 2004). The Home Depot also owns EXPO Design Center, a chain of higher-end home decorating and appliance stores. In 2006, The Home Depot acquired Hughes Supply which is to be assimilated into HD Supply serving contractors. In September 2005, Home Depot Direct launched its high-end online home-furnishings store, 10 Crescent Lane, shortly followed by the launch of Paces Trading Company, its high-end online lighting store. In mid 2006, Home Depot acquired Home Decorator's Collection which was placed as an additional brand under its Home Depot Direct Division.

Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of Home Depot are: Greg Brenneman, Richard H. Brown, John Clendenin, Claudio González, Milledge Hart, Bonnie Hill, Laban Jackson, Lawrence R. Johnston, Ken Langone, Robert Nardelli, and Tom Ridge.

Marketing

"You can do it. We can help" is the slogan used by The Home Depot through its advertising campaign, which includes television, radio, and print. Its series of commercials often depicts an average home-owner taking on a home renovation project, made possible by the help provided at the Home Depot.

Exclusive brands

Home Depot carries several exclusive brands:

• Ryobi (power tools)
• Workforce (Home Depot house-brand hand tools)
• Thomasville cabinetry
• Ralph Lauren paint
• Mill's Pride
• Hampton Bay (Home Depot house-brand lighting and ceiling fans)
• Glacier Bay (Home Depot house-brand faucets)
• Pegasus (Home Depot house-brand faucets)
• Globe Union (Home Depot house-brand faucets)
• Behr (paint)
• Vigoro Fertilizer
• Ridgid

Self-checkout

Home Depot added self checkout registers in 800 US stores in 2003. Since then, the Self Checkout program has expanded to more than 1300 stores in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. By the end of 2006, Self Checkout will be installed in every Home Depot Stores in North America, excluding the Stores in Quebec and in Mexico.

Self Checkout lanes allow the customer to scan the barcode of the items they wish to purchase, then insert money to pay for the items, and receive any change automatically. The customer no longer needs to interact with a store employee during checkout, which has allowed Home Depot to redeploy more staff onto their store floors to assist shopping customers in some situations, and reduce overall staff in its stores in others, cutting labor costs and reducing the overhead.

Home Depot was the pioneer of Self Checkout outside of the Grocery store industry. Under much skeptcism, many doubted the self service solution would work in a store where lumber and appliances were routinely sold. To the contrary, an average of 40% of the main line checkout customers use Self Checkout every day. Customer survey studies have shown that on a store by store basis, Home Depot customers are happier with checkout wait time in stores that have Self Checkout as compared to those that do not. There are routinely many more positive comments about self checkout than negative. It is true, some customers have challenges and for those customers that need a little extra attention, there is always a cashier standing by to lend a hand. In addition, younger customers use Self Checkout at a significantly higher rate than more senior customers. Self Checkout has reduced lines across the front-end at Home Depot by nearly 45% overall ^{citation needed]}

Controversies

Shareholder Controversy

At Home Depot's annual shareholder's conference [1] ^{citation needed]} (link does not work) on May 29, 2006, in Wilmington, Delaware, many of the companies shareholders expressed concern about CEO Nardelli's pay package of $123.7 million, excluding stock option grants, over the past 5 years. Nardelli was awarded this package while Home Depot's stock sunk about 9%, and competitor Lowe's saw a 185% increase on a split-adjusted basis.^{citation needed]} Only one of the board's members showed up to the meeting, Nardelli himself. Their comments were kept to a strict time limit, displayed on a large clock. Nardelli did not acknowledge any shareholder's comments, answer any questions, and he promptly left after only thirty minutes, causing an uproar.^{citation needed]} Votes on shareholder proposals afterward showed an unusually high level of dissent, with over one third withholding their support for Nardelli's re-election as CEO.^{citation needed]}

The company's response for the absence of the board on the day of the meeting was that many of the directors were at headquarters over the past few days for their quarterly meeting and remain there today on company business. The directors, however, had over a month's notice of the meeting, with the date and location of the meeting being posted on April 14th, 2006.^{citation needed]}

Illegal Drugs Found in Merchandise

In June, 2006, illegal drugs were found inside some Home Depot merchandise from stores in Massachusetts. One customer found two fifty-pound bricks of marijuana with a street value of nearly $145,000 inside a bathroom vanity that he had purchased from Home Depot. Another customer found three kilograms of cocaine and about 40 pounds of marijuana inside another vanity he had purchased. In this case the street value of the drugs was nearly $250,000. A third customer also found a large amount of illegal drugs inside merchandise he had purchased from Home Depot as well.

Searches by law enforcement at stores throughout the state of Massachusetts uncovered additional cases where drugs were found in Home Depot merchandise. Law enforcement had found that the merchandise containing the drugs had originated from Texas and were distributed to the stores from a warehouse in Massachusetts. They believed that the merchandise was supposed to be intercepted and the drugs removed beforehand, but either the person was not on duty or the packages had been mislabeled. Home Depot announced its intent to fully cooperate with law enforcement. [2]

Major sponsorships

Since 1991, the company has become a large supporter of athletics, sponsoring the United States and Canadian Olympic teams, and launching a program to offer employment to athletes that fully allowed for their training and competition schedules. While remaining supportive of Canadian Olympians, Home Depot ceased to be a sponsor of the Canadian Olympic Team in 2005. Home Depot's support of La Raza has caused criticism of their hiring practices and advocation of the increasing Mexican and Latin American presence in the United States. Company co-founder Blank also purchased the Atlanta Falcons franchise of the National Football League in February 2002. The Home Depot is also the primary sponsor of Joe Gibbs Racing. NASCAR driver Tony Stewart drives The Home Depot #20 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS. (From 2002-2003, Gibbs was also a minority partner in the Falcons, thanks to Blank.) The Home Depot is also the title sponsor of The Home Depot Center in Carson, California, home to the Los Angeles Riptide (Major League Lacrosse), both the Los Angeles Galaxy and C.D. Chivas USA (Major League Soccer), and many past major sporting events.

Home Depot Canada

Home Depot Canada is the Canadian unit of Home Depot and one of Canada's top home improvement retailers. The Canadian operations consists of more than a hundred stores and employs over 23,000 people in Canada.

The Canadian unit was created with the purchase of Aikenhead Hardware. Home Depot management has an ambitious plan to overtake its biggest competitor, Rona, which has about four times as many stores. However, many of Rona's stores are smaller than the typical Home Depot store. In terms of big box stores, Home Depot has many more stores than Rona.

External links

• Read and Write reviews about Home Depot Products
• 10 Crescent Lane
• Bernie Marcus
• Expo Design Center
• Home Decorators Collection
• Home Depot Canada (English and French website)
• Home Depot Mexico
• Home Depot USA (English website)
• Home Depot USA (Spanish website)
• Home Depot, Scholarly article
• Home Depot is Not Always Welcomed in Some Communities
• Hughes Supply
• Paces Trading Company