Home Depot And Lowes: A Comparative Analysis

Home Depot compiles advertising, antitrust and confidentiality in policy of Compliance with Laws, Regulations, Policies, and Standard Operating Procedures. Advertising is to be provided to consumers with accurate, fair, and lawful information that is intended to help them make informed decisions. Antitrust laws in the United States and other countries are intended to preserve a free and competitive market place. Confidentiality is extremely important, as internal information is not to be shared with any outside venders, competition, or family members. This is to provide a guide for employees’, as Home Depot seeks competitive advantage. (Home Depot Internal, 2008)

Home Depot is the fastest growing retailer in the U.S. by some accounts. It has a fascinating history of innovation and entrepreneurship. The company had some difficulties in the mid-2000s that some attribute to cultural clashes. However, during this period the company was able to take full advantage of the housing boom. Yet when the bubble burst, Home Depot was forced to claim substantial losses. Despite these loses Home Depot has weathered the storm fairly well and is in prime position to take advantage of an economic recovery; if it ever comes.

Lowe’s is continuously being threatened by Home Depot in losing market shares. It is a constant battle; Lowe’s and Home Depot are expanding substantially in attempts to take over territory claimed by the other as well as unclaimed territory. The biggest weakness for Lowe’s is its lack of customer service. Customers are leaving Lowe’s in search of credible, knowledgeable service which is found at Home Depot.

ROA is considered the best overall indicator of the efficiency of assets used in a company. Home Depot and Lowe’s ROA ratio both moved down due to the downturn in the industry but Home Depot was able to improve 2010.

Lowe’s (LOW) and Home Depot (HD) are competitors in the every growing market of Home Improvement. The following analysis of each company will examine the home improvement industry, the individual companies, their operating philosophies, their financial strengths or weaknesses, and a final conclusion on which company would be a better long-term investment.

Home Depot and Lowe's believe in big warehouse space, an informal atmosphere and low prices. They are able to offer the lower prices to consumers due to their purchasing power. Inventory differs depending on the story type, home centers typically sock more lumber and building supplies, as their biggest customers are contractors. They pay their floor employees minimum wage, and keep overall costs down by keeping them as part time employees.

Lowe’s is part of an oligopoly type market structure. An oligopoly is a situation in which a particular market is controlled by a small group of firms with at least two firms controlling the market. The main key to behavior in an oligopoly is that companies must take into account what other companies will do. In perfect competition, firms are price-takers and can ignore other firms (Basic Economics, 2009). The home improvement retail stores are an industry that includes Home Depot, Lowe’s, Builders Square, and in other states, Menards.  Smaller companies have to try to compete with them to stay in business.

Home Depot’s corporate-level strategy is one of internal growth. This conclusion was reached based on the increased focus that Home Depot has placed on growing its existing online and traditional retail operations. Between 2016 and 2018, Home Depot is expected to invest approximately four billion dollars into improvements in its online and physical retail locations in order to make both work more synergistically and grow sales (Petro, 2016). Home Depot hopes that these investments will continue to increase sales at both its physical and digital retail locations, thereby growing the company without adding significant numbers of physical locations.

However, in 1999, Lowe’s recorded very high sales growth alongside its expansion in preparation for the new millennium. From 1999 to 2001, Lowe’s began to assert itself as a worthy competitor for Home Depot, embodied in its significantly better margins and turnover ratios despite the recessionary economic environment. This improvement in ratios is indicative of positive change in the management of the

Home Depot, Lowe's and Wolseley are all major building equipment retailers, Wolseley having a more global presence as a UK-based firm that started in Australia. Home Depot is a North American operator and Lowe's is generally in the US only. This paper is going to analyze the balance sheets of these different firms to determine how each has performed over the course of recent years.

The Supply Chain Management System used at Lowe’s is a collaboration process. According to LeRoy Allen, Senior Vice President of Logistics for Lowe's Companies, as cited by Real Results Magazine (2012), Lowe’s has more than 3,000 suppliers and having effective communication with all of them is difficult. Providing them with key information helps them, not only run their own business but assists Lowe’s in running theirs. This model was designed to efficiently run the supply chain together (para. 2).

This paper gives the reader an insight into how a manager in a competitive industry in a two-firm constant sum game makes decisions. The writer will be playing the role of a Home Depot, Inc. manager, and the major competitor is Lowe’s, Inc. Home Depot is the largest United States (U.S.) home-improvement retailer while Lowe’s is the second-largest U.S. home-improvement retailer. This is significant because what one company does affects the other. To compare the two companies their company profiles were reviewed. The latest news headlines on both companies were

Lowe’s Company has been in business for over 60 years. The company is the second largest home improvement retailer in the world and employs more than 215,000 employees. The company’s home base is Mooresville, North Carolina. Standard & Poor ranks Lowe’s as #48 . Presently, Lowe’s stock, which is identified on the New York Stock Exchange as LOW, is selling for right under $20 a share. This price has been consistent and is comparable to their biggest competitor Home Depot, Inc whose stock has remained steady at $23.

Although times have changed since Lowe's first opened its doors in 1946, Lowe's values have not: the company remains committed to offering quality home improvement products at the lowest prices, while delivering superior customer service. Lowe's utilizes both strategic and financial planning in order to further their business and to stay in the competition with other home improvements stores for many years. Using strategic planning, the company has been able to make changes that allowed saving money and improving customers' experience. As diligent as Lowe's has been over the years, Lowe's reported a slight decrease in its sales and its earnings in its 2008 annual report. For 2009, the company plans to increase its revenues by using a

Retailing building supply stores have become a popular retail industry sector due to increased public awareness and the need of many homeowners for the home improvement products. Back in the 1970s, long before warehouse stores ruled home improvement land, do-it-yourselfers shopped at “home centers.” These 30,000 square foot stores offered cheaper prices and wider selection of products, about 25,000 more than local hardware stores and eliminated the extra trip to the lumberyard. The dependence of many of these retailers upon the homebuilding industry for much of their business has also been reduced and the warehouse superstores, such as Home Depot, have become more important. The smaller companies in the