In yesterday’s Home Depot and MakerBot partnership post, where we discuss the new 3D printer displays at 12 select stores in 3 cities, a reader comment prompted me to take a peek at Home Depot financial data. I was looking for numbers regarding sales to consumers compared to sales to professionals, and found an interesting chart that shows a breakdown of sales figures for each department.
Here is what Home Depot’s sales proportions looked like for 2013:
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| Kitchen | 10.1% |
| Indoor Garden | 9.0% |
| Paint | 8.9% |
| Outdoor Garden | 7.7% |
| Lumber | 7.4% |
| Flooring | 7.3% |
| Building Materials | 7.3% |
| Plumbing | 6.9% |
| Electrical | 6.8% |
| Tools | 6.4% |
| Hardware | 6.0% |
| Millwork | 5.6% |
| Bath | 4.7% |
| Lighting | 3.0% |
| Decor | 3.0% |
Source: Home Depot’s 2013 10-K financial filing, page 39 (PDF).
It’s interesting to see the breakdown of how much each of the 15 product categories contribute to Home Depot’s sales totals.
The indoor garden figures surprised me a bit, but most of the ratios make sense. Kitchen, for instance, likely includes cabinetry and appliances, none of which are inexpensive.
A couple of financial news agencies have specified in the past that professional users, such as contractors, make up only 3% of Home Depot’s customer base, but that these customers account for 35% of all sales. I couldn’t track down the original source for these numbers, but they sound reasonable to me. This, and the sales break down helps to explain why Home Depot and other home improvement retailers suffer in tune with the housing market.
Garrick
It would be interesting to see the profit breakdown. I bet we could estimate profit from the size of each department. Larger profits could mean a greater space dedicated, relative to sales.
Lighting, for instance, is a large department compared to sales volume, not to mention the electricity costs for all the lights that are on, and the costs of the air conditioning necessary to counter the heat.
I wonder if washing machines are included in kitchen.
fred
It would be interesting to see what’s included in the 2 garden categories. Maybe “indoor” refers to the location of merchandise within the store rather than its target application.
Stuart
That seems possible, and if so, I wonder if that includes grills, mowers, and things like that as well.
Yadda
I believe it would include all of their seasonal goods including Christmas.
Stuart
Ah, that makes even more sense, great thinking!
Derek
Could also include patio furniture and grills. I’m shocked Kitchen is only 10%, they advertise it the most. Also, millwork at 5.6%?
Stuart Little
millwork would be base and crown maybe
lumber is 2×4 and such
Jon
I’m pretty sure millwork includes doors and windows.
joe
Kitchen
10.1%
Indoor Garden
9.0%
Paint
8.9%
Outdoor Garden
7.7%
That translates to females mostly in my opinion. It’s very hard to tell a female no…lol. My mom wants new carpet, painted room now….there is no way to tell her no…lol as long as she is happy…things gotta get done. IMO.
Bill K
Interesting info….
I’m guessing per sq foot of floor space, tools are one of the top performers!
Mahalo
I, too, found the indoor garden sales to be a big surprise. It seems to me that this is not a particularly large section of the store to begin with, and I wonder what they include in that category? Is outdoor patio furniture considered indoor garden or outdoor garden? Christmas trees? If it just consists of plants, pots, and fertilizers…holy cow!
I was least surprised by kitchen. I have found that if you want to negotiate on the price of items at HD, the kitchen department is amenable to that. They have a lot of power to make judgement calls in that department.
Matt Perry
When I worked at Home Depot, every night the closing manager would go over the day’s sales figures, broken down by department. The vast majority of the time the top three departments were garden (Indoor and Outdoor combined), paint, and lumber.