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Non-Tech : Home Depot (HD)
HD 371.11-0.8%Nov 12 3:59 PM EST
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To: BI*RI who wrote (480)1/6/1999 7:19:00 PM
From: mauser96  Read Replies (1) of 1169
 
HD is tip toeing into e-commerce rather than trying to blitz it. I suspect they aren't quite sure how they fit on the web. James Cramer had a nice article today discussing the difficulty of a company trying to fit in 2 places at one time - the business model on the www is different and apparently few store retailers have figured out how to make money selling on the www. Eventually they will have to figure it out if they want to survive because the www just offers too many price advantages. Think how much a company can save in insurance and shrinkage alone. Anybody who invests in retailers should consider carefully whether his his store based company has any unique barriers to www competitors. If not, the company is like the Titanic just after it hit the iceberg. Fortunately the nature of HD business will protect it somewhat. In fact I can't think of any hardware related business that fits especially well on the www, except for perhaps tools. I do hobby gunsmithing and have constant problems trying to find proper tools, drill bits etc locally. Even mail order they are expensive. There is a big potential market for a "tool.com",a company offering not only hammers etc. but specialized tools as well, at reasonable prices. In other words a place where you could always find what you want, with a good description and use advice included. Whether HD has enough sense to find markets like this before others become dominant is another matter.
Maybe Intimate Brands should expand to offer anything anybody might be shy about buying in person. I know the only time I ventured into the ladies dept. to buy something like that I felt like I had just landed on an alien planet.
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