The Home Depot rode the pandemic-driven home improvement wave to a big jump in its in-store comp sales for Q3. The company reported sales of $33.5 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2020, an increase of $6.3 billion, or 23.2 percent above 2019. Comparable sales in the U.S. were up 24.6 percent.
“The third quarter was another exceptional quarter for The Home Depot as we saw the continuation of outsized demand for home improvement projects, which has led to sales growth of more than $15 billion through the first nine months of the year,” Chairman and CEO Craig Menear said in the Tuesday (Nov. 17) earnings announcement. “Our ability to effectively adapt to this high-demand environment is a testament to both the investments we have made in the business as well as our associates’ focus on customers. We continue to lean into these investments because we believe they are critical in enabling market share growth in any economic environment. I am proud of the resilience and strength our associates have continued to demonstrate, and I would like to thank them and our supplier partners.”
The company didn’t break out its digital sales in its earnings release. Most of its digital activity has been aimed at its PRO loyalty program, which has been heavy on mobile app connections. Menear did tell a recent conference that the company’s digital sales have been up considerably during the pandemic.
“I think, when you think about the tremendous growth in the digital space, having the flexibility to be able to adjust to handle that kind of volume, particularly the volume we’re seeing not only through the stores but direct to customer having the flexibility to adjust and deal with that volume was pretty important as well,” he said. “We did that by shifting a fulfillment center that we had opened in the Chicago area that was going to be a market delivery center in a matter of couple weeks we converted that temporarily to a direct fulfillment center, shipping product direct to customers from our dot.com business so that we could support the triple-digit growth.”
The company did announce new compensation packages for its associates, including expanded paid time off for hourly associates and the implementation of a temporary weekly bonus program. The Company is transitioning from these temporary programs to invest in permanent spots for frontline, hourly associates. This will add approximately $1 billion of incremental compensation a year.
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