Home Depot focused on services, store modernization

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 6/23/2004 12:00:00 AM

ATLANTA — The Home Depot will expand its services business to meet the demands of a growing baby-boomer demographic that has little interest in taking on labor-intensive projects, said Carol Tome, the company's executive vice president and chief financial officer, at the William Blair & Company's Growth Stock Conference today.

Noting that between now and 2010, the fastest growing segment of the population will be between the ages of 55 and 64, she said, "Fifty percent of those say, 'I don't want to do it, I want you to do it for me.' This plays very well into our services strategy."

Additionally, Tome noted the Home Depot's ongoing store-modernization strategy that consists of a three-year plan to touch every store with new signage, new paint, new lighting and a new floor. Other stores, she said, will get more deluxe treatment. Part of the plan calls for the company to "completely renovate certain selected stores and bring those up to our current store standard," said Tome, adding that the goal is better product differentiation and a store that's easier to shop.