Home Depot

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Home Depot stores offer a broad assortment of merchandise and services, and serve three primary customer groups: do-it-yourself customers, do-it-for-me customers and professional customers. A typical Home Depot store stocks approximately 40,000 to 50,000 product items, including variations in color and size. Major product groups include building materials, lumber and millwork; plumbing, electrical and kitchen; hardware and seasonal, and paint, flooring and wall coverings. To complement the national brand name products it offers, the Company has formed strategic alliances with vendor partners to market products under brand names that are only offered through The Home Depot. As of fiscal year-end 2001, the Company offered products under more than 30 proprietary and other exclusive brands, including Thomasville kitchen and bathroom cabinets; RIDGID power tools; Behr Premium Plus paint; Mill's Pride cabinets; GE SmartWater water heaters, and Vigoro fertilizer.

Founded in 1978, in Atlanta, Georgia, The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement retailer currently operating 1,459 stores, including 1,312 Home Depot stores, 50 EXPO Design Centers, one Floor Store and three HD Landscape Supply stores in the United States, 84 Home Depot stores in seven Canadian provinces, seven Home Depot stores in Puerto Rico and ten in Mexico. The company reported net sales for fiscal 2001 of $53.6 billion and employs approximately 280,000 people.
The Home Depot is credited as being the innovator in the home improvement retail industry by combining the economies of scale inherent in a warehouse format with a level of customer service unprecedented among warehouse-style retailers.
Home Depot stores cater to do-it-yourselfers, as well as home improvement, construction and building maintenance professionals.
Each Home Depot store stocks approximately 40,000 to 50,000 different kinds of building materials, home improvement supplies and lawn an...