With its tagline “how doers get more done,” Home Depot (HD) strives to put its customers first by offering a huge selection of products, friendly, highly trained staff, and guaranteed low prices.
In the process, the big box retailer earned legions of fans eager to undertake do-it-yourself projects, like renovating their homes and planting gardens, that helped to fuel the DIY revolution in the late 1970s and 1980s.
In just over a decade, the hardware chain grew from a few stores in Atlanta into the world’s largest home improvement retailer; today, it has 2,300 locations across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean and employs 475,000 people.
Owning shares of Home Depot proved to be a rock-solid investment decision over the years as well — If you had purchased $10,000 worth of HD shares at its IPO in 1981, for instance, you’d be sitting on $116 million as of July 2024.
What is Home Depot?
Within each 60,000-square-foot warehouse, Home Depot customers find more than a million products ranging from tools and construction materials to appliances, paint, and kitchen and bath items.
Home Depot also sells furniture, plants and flowers, and seasonal decorations, such as its popular Halloween collection, featuring Skelly, a 12-foot skeleton, which often sells out mere hours after its launch.
One reason co-founders Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus wanted to build such big stores was so that their customers wouldn’t have to drive all over town to complete their DIY projects. This “one-stop shopping” approach was considered novel when it was introduced, and it saved customers a lot of time in searching for what they needed, which proved wildly successful in building the brand’s reputation and fostering customer loyalty.
It was also an initially expensive business model, requiring the company to rent large tracts of land and gain support from countless vendors to stock its warehouses floor-to-ceiling with products, but ultimately, the considerable up-front expense paid off.
Large stores can quickly feel overwhelming when you’re looking for a tiny drill bit, however, so that’s why Home Depot emphasized hiring and training the right people.
According to the down-home wisdom in Blank and Marcus' business biography, “Built from Scratch: How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew the Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion,” if the founders ever saw an associate pointing a customer toward an item they needed, they would “threaten to bite their finger.” Instead of pointing, they insisted that the associate take them personally to where they needed to be and help them out.
But Home Depot’s associates not only show customers where products are, they also teach them how to use them through workshops and one-on-one sessions, and this customer-first approach has paid off for the company in spades.
Rewind back in time almost years to 1978 — Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus were just a couple of guys sitting in a Los Angeles coffee shop with little more than a dream.
Actually, they had just gotten fired from their previous roles at the Handy Dan hardware chain, where Marcus served as CEO and Blank was vice president of finance; both had been ousted in a corporate power move.
They could have sued their former company but opted instead to listen to the wisdom of their friend Sol Price, founder of the warehouse club store Price Club, which would later become Costco (COST) . Price urged them to let their ill feelings go and direct their energies to building a new — and better — business.
They had often dreamed about a store like Home Depot. Marcus, in particular, had spent years on retail’s front lines, talking with customers, training employees, and figuring out new ways to sell merchandise — experience that he said proved even more valuable than going to business school.
With the help of their friends, investment banker Ken Langone and merchandising expert Pat Farrah, they opened their first two Home Depot stores in Atlanta in 1979, housed in former JCPenney department stores. They actually struggled to attract customers at first, until a customer came back to the store with some vegetables they had grown, serving as proof that what they had learned from store associates had worked.
Word of mouth about their low prices began to spread, and by the end of the year, Home Depot was solidly in the black.
"At Home Depot, you don't get a job, you get a career," Marcus told Investors Business Daily. "You will see badges that state that associates have been with us for 15 and 25 years because we treat them well and make their work exciting."
What is Home Depot’s logo?
Home Depot’s logo, which hasn’t changed since 1978, was designed by Don Watt. Known as “the Stencil,” the logo positions the company name in white capital letters at a 45-degree angle.
Watt chose the color orange to symbolize both energy and value; store employees also wear orange aprons so that they stand out to customers in the cavernous retail warehouses.
The company made its IPO on the Nasdaq on September 22, 1981, with a split-adjusted share price of 24 cents per share. Soon after, Home Depot began expanding operations, first into Florida, and then Texas and beyond.
By 1989, Home Depot had surpassed Lowe’s (LOW) to become the largest home improvement store in the United States, making additional smart acquisitions in the following years that allowed it to gain footholds in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
What are Home Depot’s charitable ventures?
The Home Depot Foundation was established in 2002; today, it’s considered to be one of the world’s largest corporate foundations.
It supports workers interested in the homebuilding trades and also serves communities impacted by natural disasters. In addition, the foundation has pledged to invest $750 million to improve the lives of U.S. veterans by 2030.
How rich are Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus?
Blank and Marcus retired from Home Depot in 2001 and 2002, respectively, as very wealthy men.
According to Forbes, Blank’s 2024 net worth is estimated at $9.2 billion. He has a reported 70% ownership stake in the Atlanta Falcons NFL team as well a stake in the Atlanta United FC Major League Soccer Team.
In addition, Blank was part of an investment group that added $3 billion in funding to the PGA Tour in 2024, creating a new, for-profit venture, called PGA Tour Enterprises, which better competes with the upstart Saudi-backed league, LIV, that had threatened to poach top PGA players. A lifelong Democrat, Blank donated to Joe Biden’s Presidential Campaigns in 2020 and 2024.
Forbes estimates that Marcus’ net worth sits at $8.8 billion in 2024. His personal foundation has invested in veterans' causes, Jewish causes, the Georgia Aquarium, and the Centers for Disease Control. He has also donated to conservative political campaigns including Donald Trump’s 2020 and 2024 Presidential campaigns.
Home Depot superstores contain everything a customer needs to start and complete their DIY home improvement projects.
LukaTDB; Getty Images
Home Depot: Company history & timeline
1978: Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus get fired from Handy Dan.
1979: The first Home Depot stores open in Atlanta.
1981: Home Depot raises over $4 million in its initial public offering (IPO). It was originally listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol HOMD. In April 1984, shares begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker HD. The stock has split 13 times since its IPO.
1985: Rapid growth, as well as the rise in the company’s long-term debt, causes Home Depot’s earnings to decline by 42% in 1985. The company solves this issue by slowing its expansion to just 10 stores a year later.
1990: Home Depot becomes the largest home improvement retailer in the U.S., surpassing Lowe’s.
1994: The company acquires the Canadian hardware chain Aikenhead’s Hardware for $150, rebranding all stores under the orange apron.
1995: Home Depot opens its first Tool Rental Centers in Nashville, Tennessee. It would later grow into the world’s largest small tool rental company.
2000: The company launches its e-commerce website.
2001: After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Home Depot sets up three command centers with over 200 associates to provide relief supplies to rescue workers such as masks, gloves, batteries, and tools.
2002: The first Home Depot store opens in Mexicali, Mexico. Home Depot also acquires the Mexican hardware chain Del Norte.
Later that year, Home Depot makes a rare misstep by acquiring Home Way, a home improvement company in China. The brand did not understand that Chinese consumers preferred to hire professional contractors rather than do their own DIY projects; by 2012, Home Depot had closed all of its 12 stores in China.
Also in 2002,The Home Depot Foundation is established. As of September 2024, it has invested more than $500 million in causes supporting veterans, hurricane preparedness efforts and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)s.
2006: In response to Hurricane Katrina, which decimated residences and infrastructure in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, Home Depot’s relief efforts construct affordable housing for 700 individuals and families displaced by the storm.
2006: Home Depot acquires Hughes Supply, a business-to-business retailer, for $3.5 billion.
2007: Instead of stocking lots of inventory for its online products, Home Depot launches its first supply chain of distribution centers, called Rapid Deployment Centers.
2009: After the housing bubble burst during the Great Recession, Home Depot revenues drop 8% as customers stop buying and renovating homes. Home Depot lays off 7,000 employees and closes its Expo Design Centers.
2010: Home Depot launches its first mobile shopping app.
2011: The company introduces “buy online, pickup in store” shopping.
2012: Home Depot opens its 100th store in Mexico, in Nuevo León, generating $1 billion in sales in the country alone.
2014: Three more HD Direct Fulfillment Centers open.
2016: The Home Depot Foundation pledges $250 million to support veterans' causes.
2017: Home Depot acquires The Company Store for an undisclosed amount.
2022: Home Depot announces it has added $132 billion in sales during the COVID-19 pandemic (between February 2020 and January 2021) as people stuck under stay-at-home restrictions decide to spruce up their homes.
2024: Home Depot surpasses second-quarter earnings expectations but warns of weaker sales in Q3 and beyond due to high interest rates and a shortage of affordable homes for buyers.
On September 18, the Federal Reserve cuts rates by 50 basis points but leaves investors worried their actions aren't happening soon enough.