Top 10 Home Depot Digital Takeaways from the Pandemic
Home Depot’s Q1 2020 earnings call on May 19th had several positive signs for home improvement, including reported higher sales in the latest quarter despite the large-scale disruption caused by the corona virus pandemic. While both Home Depot, Lowe’s and others were deemed essential and allowed to resume retail operations across the country, the questions of how the pandemic would directly impact their business still remained.
As we all try to decipher where things are headed in the COVID-19 world in the industry, there were several trends or updates specific to changes in customer behavior, their willingness to engage specifically in digital marketing channels and their overall appetite for improving their homes during the stay-at-home orders issued in many parts of the country.
Here are ten key digital marketing takeaways we heard from the Home Depot leadership team that every home improvement marketer should take note of as you evaluate your future marketing efforts in the post-pandemic selling environment.
Top 10 Home Depot key Digital Stats from q1 2020:
E-Commerce penetration jumped to 15% of all sales in Q1, almost doubling the share of online sales from Dec 2019
Digital business accelerate 30% and traffic to HomeDepot.com was above Black Friday levels as shelter-in-place orders rolled out in March
79% accelerated growth in digital sales over the duration of the quarter
Triple digital growth rates in digital sales in April compared to March
More than doubled the number of new customers vs. repeat customers, six to 12 months, less than 12 months, 12 to 24, reactivated over 24 months across every product category
60% of online orders were Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS)
Q1 revenue rose 7.1% to $28.26 billion and same-store sales grew 6.4%, beating expectations of 4.4%.
Tripled the number of My Home Depot customer loyalty account registrations
Doubled the number of Home Depot app downloads against normal quarterly run rates – all of which were acquired through earned media channels
Prominent “reaccelerated” growth in DIY and smaller Pros
“Very low” perceived cancellation rates of Pro Projects due to the pandemic and projects appear to be only postponed temporarily until work can resume.
What Does This Mean? Your Customers Expectation Changed Overnight
It’s time for an e-commerce action plan
The research is everywhere how this pandemic has shift consumer behaviors in every industry to be more digitally enabled— and home improvement is no different. Whether you selling building materials exclusively to Pros or the homeowner DIY market, there will be an inherit increase in the demand for online shopping, digital customer experiences and “no touch” interactions for the foreseeable future. If you don’t have a strategic plan for your ecommerce sales efforts, now is the time to start.
10 Years of E-Commerce Growth in 8 Weeks
The latest data and insights suggest online sales has leaped from 16% overall retail penetration to 27% in just 8 weeks. The last jump of 11% growth in online sales took 10 years. While the levels are likely to subside slightly as we return to normalcy in the economy, most e-commerce experts agree that customers will only demand more frictionless online sales in the future—-and those organizations that don’t embrace this customer behavior may have a difficult road ahead in driving growth.
Where will your organization be once the dust settles?
