As Home Depot’s sales in the pro market continued to grow, the company is developing a number of initiatives to cater toward builders, remodelers, maintenance, repair, and operating supply workers.
During Home Depot’s Q2 2018 earnings conference call, Bill Lennie, the executive vice president of outside sales and service, estimated that pro sales amounted to about 45 percent of the company’s overall sales, outpacing DIY sales. Total sales in Q2 were up $30.5 billion, or 8.4 percent, from last year.
The company credits the growth in pro sales in part to its integration with Interline, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based marketer and distributor of broad-line maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products, which Home Depot purchased in 2015. Lennie pointed to the “great collaboration across the organizations, which is allowing us to cross-sell between Interline’s inventories and Home Depot’s inventories.”
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“The alignment of our Interline and legacy outside sales forces around four targeted end markets continues to gain traction,” says Craig Menear, Home Depot’s president and CEO. “These sales professionals are experts in their respective fields, providing valuable insight and partnership to the pro customers that they serve.”
Home Depot is also expanding its outreach to professional tradespeople through the construction of a B2B website, which is currently in beta development. This will capitalize on the growing trend of online sales—Home Depot’s online traffic grew approximately 26 percent in Q2 from a year prior.
In addition, the company has opened its first Market Delivery Operation (MDO), with plans to open more in the remainder of the year. For the moment, the local delivery hubs primarily distribute primarily appliances, but more products will be added as more MDOs open.
“The market delivery operations that we built in is just part of our overall plan to drive the fastest, most efficient delivery in home improvement,” says Marc Brown, Home Depot’s senior vice president of store operations.
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