My wife was perusing The Home Depot holiday catalog that recently arrived in the mail. A holiday-themed bedding set on the cover caught her eye before she noticed the relatively small Home Depot logo at the top of the page.
She turned the pages to find well-styled vignettes showcasing furniture, tableware, decorative accessories, cookware, kitchen electrics, home textiles and more. The catalog directed readers to homedepot.com to purchase the many featured items.
Next came a most telling comment from my wife: “I didn’t realize Home Depot sold all these products.”
That The Home Depot in recent years has taken a deeper dive, primarily through an updated e-commerce platform, into a wider array of home and housewares products should surprise few in the industry. That such development had eluded a relatively frequent Home Depot shopper, though, was somewhat surprising to me.
Sometimes, though, you can be close enough to something that what is obvious to you may not be so obvious to others. And as an industry reporter, I have watched and covered The Home Depot’s e-commerce reimagining that began a few years ago. That initiative was a primary catalyst and enabler of the opportunity for the home improvement retailing power to showcase a wider, yet still selectively curated range of better housewares and home furnishings without a significant overhaul of the store merchandising plan. The proposition to The Home Depot customers: Visit the engaging, new website for a full complement of upscale home goods to help furnish completed home improvement projects.
What started as a digital-first program had the potential to transfer to stores through selective in-store placement, plus signage, kiosks and store associate referrals to the online home and housewares offering.
The Home Depot is gaining traction and driving sales growth with its expanded home and housewares program, industry insiders confirm. My wife’s reaction to the holiday catalog, however, tells me a) The Home Depot might still have work to do to build widespread consumer awareness that it is a more complete and advisory resource, if now mostly online, for better home goods and housewares; b) the stores remain ripe for showcasing such product, and that could be especially productive given the retailer’s strong store traffic through the pandemic; and c) the response is positive when people realize The Home Depot offers such goods, an expression and affirmation of the trust the retailer has cultivated among its core shoppers.
The Home Depot through the years generally has been more selective and promotional about its in-store offering in home furnishings apart from such core home improvement-aligned categories as storage/organization, cleaning, home environment and outdoor living.
Home improvement retailers as a group are well-positioned to be an increasingly important resource for a wider range of home products, including tableware and kitchenware, that can put the finishing touches on remodeling projects. Advancing e-commerce capability provides a sturdy platform for such strategic product expansion, and it can also help decide what might make its way into stores.
The Home Depot has made significant progress over the past few years in building an online selection of high-end home products and brands not commonly found in its stores. That might seem obvious by now to the home and housewares industry. I just wonder how many more shoppers would be surprised by it.
