A store needs to know who its target market is, so it can focus on making the right efforts to attract the right customers to succeed. Especially large stores, like Home Depot, need to know and care about a target market. Part of the success that Home Depot has is due to this; the largest hardware store in the country and the world is pretty certain about who its ideal customer is. Let’s know about Home Depot’s Target Market Demographics.
Home Depot has been directing all its efforts to attract DIY customers and professional contractors. The generation it mainly focuses on satisfying is the baby boomer generation, so its average ideal consumer is around 50 years old. Keep reading to know more about the demographics of Home Depot’s target market and how it started changing a couple of years ago.
The Ideal Home Depot Shopper
First things first: Home Depot is a hardware store with an extraordinarily large presence in the country. It has more than 2,300 stores in North America but manages to beat every other hardware chain in the world with revenue for 2021 of $132.11 billion.
The store provides every possible needed appliance to help in home improvement activities and also sells home decor products. There are three markets that Home Depot focuses on attracting, each of them with particular needs to be met:
- DIY (Do It Yourself) customers – People who practice home improvement projects in their own homes.
- DIFM /Do It For Me) customers – People who hire other people to complete home improvement projects for them, although they usually buy the materials.
- Professional contractors – Includes construction men, repairmen, remodelers, this is; people who make a living of making home improvement projects for others.
In 2020, the average Home Depot shopper was white (69%), followed by far for Hispanic (15.3%) customers. Both, African Americans (8.5%) and Asian (5.5%) customers provide less of the store’s income.
It’s also remarkable that Home Depot’s ideal customers belong to the baby boomer generation. This is the generation of people born after World War II. The fact that they own most of the United States’ homes in the present and half of the national income contributes to making them the most important customers for Home Depot.
In matters of gender, men are most likely to shop at Home Depot than women since they are used to investing more money in home improvement projects (men Baby boomers know more about repair and installation processes too). However, this trend is rapidly changing as more women are getting involved in home technical maintenance.
The income of an ideal Home Depot shopper corresponds to the middle ($53,000- $106,000) and middle-upper class ($107,000- $374,000), and they spend $75 on average on every visit to the store.
How Does Home Depot Keep Up?
Besides offering almost 40,000 items in-store and 700,000 products online, Home Depot is devoted to providing the best customer experience through its associates, who help the customers.
Here’s what they’re doing to meet all the different market groups’ needs:
- DIY customers: Home Depot’s associates provide the right information about products and projects. They are always ready to answer particular questions in-store and online. The store has created workshops to share the DIY customers’ knowledge while reinforcing their closeness to the brand.
- DIFM customers: Home Depot offers several installation services to DIFM customers, which they can hire when acquiring materials or appliances. Some of these services are kitchen, window, and cabinets installation, flooring, and plumbing.
- Professional customers: Since these customers share much or more knowledge than the store, it assists in facilitating their buying processes. Home Depot offers delivery of materials, credit programs, bulk pricing, along with special parking spots available for them near the store (mostly for carrying and picking up multiple products). The Home Depot app enables professional experts to review every store’s inventory too.
How Home Depot Target Market Is Changing?
Home Depot is aware that it needs to catch up with new generations to continue at the head of all hardware stores. It has started focusing more on Millennials, as the store believes they are more interested in DIY home improvement projects, although it conducts new efforts to attract Generation Z customers too.
Some interesting features about these two generations are that one, they’re afraid of the economic responsibilities that come from homeownership, and two, they haven’t learned what their parents learned about home improvement projects, which makes them rely more on handymen.
In response to these facts (alarming for a hardware store), Home Depot features workshops and creates online tutorial videos to motivate Millennials and members of Generation Z to learn about basic home improvement projects. These customers are most likely to invest in home décor too, so Home Depot is expanding its products in this area, by offering more furniture, wall décor, and bedding.
Attracting new customers with new technology is part of Home Depot’s plan as well. Thus, the store’s assistance and offers through apps and websites are not only increasing but gaining quality. More high-tech products are being added to the store’s selection too.
Conclusion
Home Depot focuses on DIY and DIFM customers along with professionals. The regular customer is white, around 50 years old, and belongs to the middle or middle-upper class. Recently, the store has increased its efforts to attract Millennials and Gen Z customers since they represent the majority of the U.S. population.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Millennials likely to prefer Home Depot over Lowe’s?
Yes, according to a survey led by Bank of America.
Home many times a regular Home Depot customer visits the store?
The regular customer visits 4-6 times per year.
