THE HOME DEPOT TO TEST HARDWARE
CONVENIENCE STORE
ATLANTA May 13, 1998- The Home Depot, North America's largest home improvement retailer, today announced it is developing plans to test a hardware convenience store format. This format, as yet unnamed, will be designed to serve the small project do-it-yourself homeowner and other customers who prefer a convenient location and smaller store environment for purchasing home improvement and related products.
"The U.S. home improvement convenience market generated sales totaling approximately $50 billion in 1997, but the vast majority of those sales took place outside of larger home center stores such as Home Depot," stated Arthur M. Blank, The Home Depot President and CEO. "This test will help us determine the best products, services and methods of gaining home improvement sales we would not be able to get inside our Home Depot stores."
The test is being developed and will be run by Bob Wittman, Senior Vice President of Business Development for The Home Depot and former chief operating officer of Orchard Supply Hardware Stores. It is currently expected that the first store will open in the Northeast United States during the first quarter of fiscal 1999, followed by three more stores in that region later in the year.
Mr. Blank noted that the convenience store test is one of a number of growth initiatives being developed to increase The Home Depot's presence in the $365 billion housing and building-related products market. The initiatives are also designed to foster longer-term sales and earnings growth and enhance stockholder returns over an extended period of time.
The Home Depot currently operates 657 stores in the United States and Canada, with plans to operate over 1,300 stores by the end of fiscal 2001. The Company also offers facilities maintenance and repair products, and wallpaper and custom window treatments via direct mail through subsidiaries Maintenance Warehouse and National Blind and Wallpaper Factory.
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