The Home Depot

Whether its light fixtures or lawn ornaments, kitchen cupboards or power tools, you can most likely find it at The Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer.   They have grown over the years since their incorporation in 1979, and now operate not only in the US, but they also have stores in Canada, Mexico, and China.   The Home Depot has an array of competitors of various types but continues to keep their position as the number one home improvement retailer and the number two retailer worldwide.   Every year new developments and strategies are produced to keep The Home Depot competitive with other companies in the industry and profitable enough to continue to grow and prosper.  
As stated earlier, The Home Depot is a home improvement retailer.   This entails the sale of items as home improvement products, appliances, tools, do-it-yourself literature, a magnitude of lawn and garden products, as well as many other items.   They have three classifications for the customer that they serve: do-it-yourself (D-I-Y), do-it-for-me (D-I-F-M), and professional.   D-I-Y customers generally purchase merchandise from The Home Depot for home improvement. They generally buy the product and complete the home improvement projects themselves.   The Home Depot offers do-it-yourself classes for this type of customer.   Associates actually demonstrate and instruct homeowners on how to use Home Depot products to improve their homes.   D-I-F-M customers want the projects to be professionally contracted and completed for them.   Under these circumstances the Home Depot will contract third parties in order to serve these customers.   Professional customers include independent contractors, expert carpenters, and other trades or businesses dedicated to this industry.   The Home Depot has several programs to assist these types of customers such as additional delivery options, designated associates, more extensive merchandise selections, as well as more liberal credit policies (Mergent... [continues]

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