Goodbye, Home Depot - Page 3

toyemp · 01-26-06, 02:14

Competition is always good. For the longest time, Home Depot was the only game in town since they pretty much put everyone else out of business (Builders Emporium, OSH, etc) until Lowes opened up about 2 years ago. Even though the Lowes is around 7-10 miles away, I guess Home Depot took it seriously because they moved the Home Depot in Yorba Linda into a bigger building in the same industrial park last year (used to be a Super Kmart until they closed up) and went completely upscale. At the grand opening, all the signs said that it was the largest Home Depot in the world. It has a look and feel inside that is similar to Lowes vs the other Home Depots and has other stuff like a flower shop, coffee/esspresso shop and even a valet. After you buy stuff, if you dont want to load it into your car, just give them your keys and tell them where you parked. They will run out, get your car and bring it to the valet loading area and load the stuff into the car for you!

Pretty much the only thing it doesn't have is valet parking (at least not that I noticed at least)

Setec Astronomy · 01-26-06, 02:24

An upscale Home Depot? There's an oxymoron for you!

Do they have better quality dust on everything?

toyemp · 01-26-06, 02:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Setec Astronomy

An upscale Home Depot? There's an oxymoron for you!

Do they have better quality dust on everything?

You know, I guess I never really thought of it, but you are right, at other Home Depots a lot of stuff is always dusty. I never really paid attention, but I can't recall getting any dusty stuff in this store though. I will have to look next time I am there

Setec Astronomy · 01-26-06, 03:02

I think it's from bags of cement and that kind of stuff that rip open and settle on everything.

Spilchy · 01-26-06, 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Setec Astronomy

Here in NJ, pre-Home Depot there was Rickel's and Channel Lumber

Jeez, what a blast from the past Setec! I remember going with my old man as a tot all the time to those stores.

I don't mind HD. I have found everyhting I've needed and breezed through the self service check out counter. I could give a damn how clean the place is. It's a giant hardware store! It's supposed to be dirty! I miss the old school places with hardwood floors and saw dust on the ground.

Setec Astronomy · 01-26-06, 03:26

Yeah, well, you like to eat dinner now in Tiger's Hardware.

WSUcommuter · 01-26-06, 03:48

My favorite place is a local Do-It Best store. The same people (including the owner) are always in there, I know most of them by name (went to school with a few), and if they do not carry it they will find it and order it for you. I pay a few cents per item more, sometimes a couple bucks, but I've never walked out without the product or an order invoice.

Lowes and Home Depot both remind me of Wal-Mart too much. I only go in if I see it in one of their Sunday newspaper ads.

medic · 01-27-06, 02:18

HD has an upscale brand called Expo. I haven't been to one, but it's supposedly more like a design house instead of a construction store.

anyway, a HD with a vallet? I don't think I could ever use that. I didn't feel masculine enough when I'd drive there in a sedan to get a $2 set of drywall nails when the guy next to me was loading a whole mess of 2x4s and plywood into his F350, I'm not sure what I'd do if I was stnading there with a latte handing the keys to a vallet

BigAl3 · 05-20-08, 08:16

hey setec...

Housing Woes Sink Home Depot's Profit
By HARRY R. WEBER,AP
Posted: 2008-05-20 15:17:12
Filed Under: Earnings
ATLANTA (May 20) - The Home Depot Inc. reported a 66 percent drop in first-quarter profit Tuesday due to a large one-time charge and continued weakness in the housing market.

The company did not update its guidance for the year.

The results, excluding the charge, beat Wall Street expectations despite a decline in overall sales and sales at stores open at least a year.

Home Depot shares fell 87 cents, or 3 percent, to $28 in pre-market trading.

Industry: Home improvement
In a first for Home Depot, at the start of May it announced plans to close 15 underperforming stores in the U.S., following 1,450 job cuts since December.

The Atlanta-based company said it earned $356 million, or 21 cents a share, in the three months ending May 4, compared with a profit of $1.05 billion, or 53 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding a charge related to store closings and the shrinking of future store growth plans, Home Depot said it earned $697 million, or 41 cents a share.

Analysts were expecting earnings of 37 cents a share excluding one-time items.

Home Depot said revenue in the quarter fell 3.4 percent to $17.91 billion, compared with $18.55 billion recorded a year earlier.

Sales at stores open at least a year fell 6.5 percent in the first quarter, Home Depot said.

Its average sales ticket was $57.36 in the quarter, a 2.8 percent drop from $59.01 a year earlier.

"The housing and home improvement markets remained difficult in the first quarter; in fact, conditions worsened in many areas of the country," Chief Executive Frank Blake said in a statement.

Home Depot has said previously that excluding one-time items it expected earnings per share from continuing operations to decline by 19 percent to 24 percent for fiscal 2008. But, in its earnings report Tuesday, it did not address those figures. In comments prepared for delivery to investors later in the morning, Chief Financial Officer Carol Tome also was not planning to mention future guidance. She planned to say that Home Depot's "prospects" would be addressed at a June 5 investor conference.

Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Fassler said in a research note Tuesday that the lack of updated guidance could cause confusion among investors.

As for Home Depot's quarterly numbers, Fassler said "these results corroborate assessments from Lowe's results yesterday - the sector is bumping along the bottom, lagging housing turnover by several months."

Mooresville, N.C.-based Lowe's Cos. reported Monday a nearly 18 percent drop in first-quarter earnings. Lowe's lowered its guidance for the year.

Home Depot announced this month that it was putting the brakes on some of its expansion plans and said it would do what was previously unthinkable - close 15 of its flagship stores. The move, to be completed by July, affects 1,300 employees

The company reiterated its intention to open 55 new stores in the current fiscal year, though it said it had ditched its goal to open some 50 U.S. stores that have been in its new store pipeline, in some cases for more than 10 years.

Home Depot took a charge in the first quarter of $543 million. After tax, the charge was $341 million, a spokeswoman said.

Some analysts and large investors have worried in the past that as Home Depot gets bigger, it would invariably put stores in direct competition with existing stores, a practice known in the industry as cannibalization.

Home Depot in the past has justified the practice, saying it increased the company's overall market share.

Blake said when he announced the store closings that Home Depot's goal now is to "reduce cannibalization and drive higher returns."

Home Depot operates 2,258 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China.

BlueLibby04 · 05-20-08, 08:47

Im just the opposite around here. A bunch of mexicans came in and built a big new lowes to replace the old one. For awhile the place was great. Everything was nice and organized and prices were decent but the last time I went it was crazy. No one was there, all the shelves were messed up, only high school kids were working and one check out lane was open. I think it has more to do with the fact that the housing market sucks and no one is buying anything from any of the stores.

Setec Astronomy · 05-20-08, 08:55

Boy, this was an old one. BTW, the Lowe's did turn to crap, but at least it's still cleaner than HD...I can't go into HD with my friend Jr. because she has an asthma attack. And regarding Expo, the one attached to my closest HD closed a couple years ago...but they knocked down the internal wall and expanded the HD into the space...for what reason I'm not sure, but they seem to have added a wider variety of products. I think they need to install a monorail to take you around the store, or rent Segways. You need to pack a lunch to walk from one end of the store to the other.

JonP · 05-20-08, 09:17

There is only 3 HDs here, I only been in two but they seem pretty well kept and stocked. The only one Lowes is some 25 miles from me. There are a couple of Sutherlands here, 1 across town and the other is just a few mins away. Sutherlands is like HD and Lowes, but they seems to carry things you may not find in other stores.