I see that HD is closing about 1/3 of their Expo stores because of poor performance.
“The housing and renovation market may be hot, but The Home Depot has cooled to its Expo store concept, the chain of upscale remodeling and home design showrooms it launched in 1991.
Home Depot, the second-largest retailer in the United States, said yesterday it will close 15 of its 54 Expo stores and convert five more, including one in East Elmhurst, into Home Depot locations.”
“Remodeling activity is expected to hit a record $209 billion this year, according to the National Association of Home Builders. But Home Depot hasn’t quite figured out how best to tap into demand for the high-end design and construction services that Expo offered, said Neil Stern, a principal at retail consultancy McMillan Doolittle.
“They’ve been trying to figure this out for a long time,” he said. “At various times they said, ‘Aha! we got it. Make the box bigger, make the box smaller, let’s put in soft goods, let’s take out soft goods.’ They’re still trying to figure out how to take a great concept and make it profitable.”
While Expo hasn’t been an unqualified success, he added, Home Depot’s experiments there are beginning to find a place at the company’s main stores, as evinced by improved presentation of cabinets, flooring and appliances. The namesake stores also have become more aggressive in the installation business.”
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I once heard someoen say: "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American consumer". That's probably why wally world and the big boxes are doing so well.
So when a big box store tries to pass themselves off as "upscale, I guess it's no surprise that they failed.
I really viewed HD Expo as a showroom for what you could buy at Home Depot. The majority of items in Expo could easily be purchased at Home Depot, albeit by "special order". What was useful of Expo was the abilty to see "examples" of all the "parts" put together.Then again, the stmt of a lack of taste for most of the population is so true. How many people buy the cheap 6x9 rug at Walmart to put under their dining room table? Heck, even in my house, it looks like the previous owner bought all the wallpaper out of the bargain bin...now I get ripped it all down...lucky me.
You can keep ‘big orange’! I live 3 blocks from them, and get in the car and drive 25 minutes to Lowe’s, or another 15 to the ‘local’ lumberyard or across to 84.
I have yet to run into HD and walk out with what I was looking for; much less find any one working there with half a clue. Here’s to hoping they join Hechinger’s.
Hechinger's?! God that is a blast from the past! In hindsight, that was one of the few places that pissed me off more than HD. Incompetence doesn't do them justice!Mike
Mike, <!----><!---->
Isn't that the truth, how 'bout another one; Dart Drug - guaranteed to have it on sale, but not in the store. <!---->
Some years ago I met one of HD partners who mentioned that they were moving into areas specifically to put John out of business – succeeded in that, but not sure it made enough of a difference. <!---->
Hey where in MD are you? And what do you do?<!---->
Brian<!---->
Ah, memories! Dart, G.C. Murphy, Peoples Drugs, Hot Shoppes, Giffords Ice Cream, Montgomery Donuts.I'm in Gaithersburg, but most all of my work is down county or upper NW. I'm a remodeling contractor. Mostly design-build, but occasionally work with other architects.Yourself?
"
Ah, memories! Dart, G.C. Murphy, Peoples Drugs, Hot Shoppes, Giffords Ice Cream, Montgomery Donuts.
and Highs.
Way back when, there was a Squadron Shop (model shop) around the corner from Giffords, on Sligo at Georgia. Then it moved to Wheaton, and now it's just mail order.
I definitely remember High's......Slushpuppie's.....mmmm.I only remember the Squadron Shop in Wheaton Plaza, so I guess I'm a little younger than you.If you're from the area, then maybe you shed a tear when they tore down the Putt Putt in Rockville. Many Saturday nights playing golf & pinball.Oh well, nothing stays the same, does it?
>>Oh well, nothing stays the same, does it?No, and I'm very glad I don't live there anymore. We originally moved there in 1972, and I moved out this time in 2003. The huge influx of people just got to be too much. I think if it had stabalized, I might have adjusted, but I just saw it continuing to get worse. Too bad, as there are many, many nice attributes to the area.
Squadron Shop
Ooh, there's some memories. I drove all the way out to Arlington to actually browse the original physical store once. It was cool, somewhat like visiting Bobbye Hall's on lower Greenvile, but somewhat disapointing--everything I really wanted was only available by mail order. C'est la vie.
Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I remember on a trip to Michagan once (visiting Yankee relatives), I got to go to the original in Detroit! Made my day. They had way more of the unusual stuff there than in Silver Spring.
Ah, yes. Back when the catalog itself was pratically as good as ripping off shrinkwrap from that new box . . .
Nowadays, the online store has the most stuff--all very convenient to put in a shopping cart (the total is what?). Still not the same as takign the highlighter to the catalog pages.
Ah those things that might be . . . if only, if only . . . Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Spent some time in the Naples FL store. The demographics are perfect for that area; thousands of homes and condos within five miles-- $500K to $10M. I knew two guys that used to work there(very knowledgable in their trade). Both didn't last more than 4-5 months. Biggest complaint was young management with very little experience right out of college. There were always communication and product ordering problems. Nice stuff--though I never bought much there. Surprises me of the closings, but every market is different.
ight out of college. There were always communication and product ordering problems. Nice stuff--though I never bought much there
There's part of the problem--Expo does not really fit the model of "national buying" power that a big box (in any retail market) wants to use.
The National buyer for sinks for HD is looking at his list of 5 or 6, and he's making his suppliers jump like circus dogs over 1¢ & 2¢ price differences. He is not going to be very helpful for the Expo national buyer who has to get this year's, say, Kohler line in nnn showrooms. Kohler gets to drive the wheelbarrow, then (and their people might just have a reason to kick somebody when they're down like that)--that's not going to be part of the big box "corporate culture."
To fill positions which goes against existing culture kind of requires not knowing any better, which suggests young folk. Corporate culture then leans on them, and they bail for a different company. The vacancy is filled by either someone learning OTJ, or by an existing "knows our way, not their way" person. Put the light-gauge Pacific-rim stamped $100 sink next to the $400 entry-level upscale SS sink--yeah, that'll move product.
There's a whole 'nuther rant on what happens when you hire a BBA, or Marketing major to special order (or create the special order system for) high-end plumbing items . . . Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Atleast you could get a lb. of screws, or a roll of tape in Georgetown without driving all the way to T. W. Perry's.People's dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs rabbits will dream of rabbits. It's what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around.
- Barbara Kingsolver
You work in Georgetown? Brave soul! For us Marylanders, Perry's is sort of on the way into town, so it's not that bad.Come to think of it..............nah, I still don't miss Hechinger.
Expos were places where you could drop in and buy a $10K chandelier, or pick up that $5K art glass pedestal sink you've always wanted and put in in the Volvo. Yeah right.
I guess HD discovered that folks who want that type of amenity don't actually buy it themselves, they hire a designer to do it for them. And I suspect that most designers didn't get treated very well by the HD system, so they stayed away and earned their 25% from another supplier.
The McMansion crowd already have the best of everything from the day of closing, so no need for them to shop at Expos either ;-)
Actually they have some "designers" on staff and do $50k and up kitchens.But not all of them went well. At one time I had a link to a complaint forum that had a number of horror stores about HD Expo installs.
HD 's problem is they try to cater to the upscale crowd from their penthouse office while the help they have at the personal level they stole from McDonalds
In the Expo stores, I have found the salespeople to be quite professional and knowledgeable about the products.
In the HD stores, it is pot luck. You might get a dummy, but you might also get someone good.Gene Davis, Davis Housewrights, Inc., Lake Placid, NY
"In the Expo stores, I have found the salespeople to be quite professional and knowledgeable about the products."
You obviously haven't been at the ones in Atlanta. I had a friend who was recently having a $750k house built there. He wanted an elaborate $8k Kohler tub with a laminar flow fill and all the other bells and whistles. He went to Expo and ordered all the parts.
I went down to help him walk the house during framing, and also helped him sort out the mess of parts Expo sold him. The laminar fill required a 3/4" deck-mounted fill valve- they sold him two 1/2" valves, and a shower diverter (there was no shower on the system). He ended up with $700 of parts he didn't need, and didn't have the parts that he DID need.
When we went back to Expo to try and straighten the mess out, his "designer" had been MIA for a week or so. According to the design manager, she was having some "problems" and they didn't know when/if she'd be back. Meanwhile, she had done all the tile, granite, and decorator layouts with him, and no one could find all of that info. He ended up canceling a big order and getting it from a local supplier.
Here in NJ, the EXPOs are used as showrooms by the contractors. They bring clients in, let them touch and feel everything, and then buy the material from their local vendors, where they can get service.
Bob
Naples, FL, and the one out on Long Island, are the two where I have experience. I cannot speak for sales or service, only product knowledge.Gene Davis, Davis Housewrights, Inc., Lake Placid, NY
Yeah Expo has some great designers. Had a client last year that bought about $45k worth of kitchen from Expo. EVERYTHING was wrong. Seems they had bad measurements to start from (their guy not mine).
They had to replace three cabinets, one took three tries and SIX MONTHS. The designer couldn't figure out what the size was on the advantium oven he had sold them.
I could go on and on with just this client, but I digress.
Bottom line, if they leave michigan I wont miss them.
I think you have gotten to the heart of it. They have the high end stuff, and at pretty good prices sometimes BUT if you have to get a question answered, forget it. You can't find someone to talk to and when you do they don't know anything.On the other hand, they have self-service stuff like Grohe plumbing fixtures that in many other stores I have to wait to talk to a salesperson to get. That was there best feature IMO.RogerRogerI'd rather be making cabinets and friends....
Here in NH we have Home Depots, but no Expos', so we went down to one in Burlington, MA for ideas when planning our new house (in now and we went to other businesses to view as well). While many of the products didn't match our style, the range was impressive and the salespeople were helpful w/o being "in your face". We bought all our kitchen and bath plumbing fixtures there (American Standard - 2 thumbs up).
It seems that this corporation has expectations to receive returns on its investments in a relatively short timeframe and their Expo didn't meet those expectations. It is worth noting that H.D. apparently sited those Expos near large urban markets; if they would have sited those in smaller markets where no high end appliance/fixture merchant was present, they could have been the "largest fish in the pond", rather than just another big fish in the sea.
Oh well...
I have been to the Expo in west Los Angeles, it was impressive from a selection standpoint and you where not dodging forklifts like at there box stores. We where looking at tile for a bathroom remodel. We liked there selection but it was a two week wait for what we wanted and that was not anything special. Had the tiler get it from a local wholesaler who stocked what we needed.
One of the EXPO's on the chopping box is the one in East Palo Alto, CA. Not too far from me, I enjoyed buying stuff there (lately, been getting some 50% area rugs). Ordered my Viking and GE Monogram appliances there (others through Sears), and other things for the finish of my house. I do like going there to get some ideas and thought the staff was reasonably helpful and knowledge; it's tough to get good help in the service industry on the Peninsula here in general.
What I thought was interesting was that this EXPO is in some of the highest-end zip codes in the entire country (Palo Alto, Atherton, Menlo Park, etc.), so why wouldn't this version of HD be a success? I mentioned this to a contractor friend and his take on it was that these higher-end consumers probably are more "botique" purchasers and also rely more on designers and higher-end GC's for their respective service needs, and not someone at EXPO.
Anyway, will be sorry to see them go if nothing else, not just for my convenience (now I have to go to San Jose, CA), but because the store was in a pretty depressed area (E. Pallie)...there will still, I'm sure, be the regular Home Creepo next door, and an IKEA across the street.
They're closing Concord too. They over-saturated the Bay Area and the stores ended up cannibalizing one another. The average shopper at EXPO has a very high income level (documented in studies they do) and there are only so many of those people in any on metropolitan area. You need a lot of them to support one store. EXPO makes its money from projects, not from retail. The stores that are doing well on projects will stay open.IMHO there are two things they need to do to survive in the long run. The first is not to compete with Home Depot - not to offer the same products. The second is to stop transferring employees back and forth between Home Depot and EXPO. If they want a high end client at EXPO, they need a different kind of customer service person there than they do at Home Depot. You wouldn't expect to see the same person working at Target and Nordstrom either. One thing I think they've done right is not to commission salespeople."A completed home is a listed home."
I'm not surprised about the Concord store - whenever I've been in there seemed too quiet to justify all the overhead. And yes, my experience was consistent about the quality of the people. I was trying to get some information on an appliance and after 15 minutes just said give me the manual - found the answer in a minute...
Guess I'd better get down there and see if there are any bargains to be had!
While Expo hasn't been an unqualified success
No big surprise to me. When they opened the one up near Addison (north of Dallas), they went to great pains to make it "exclusive" to the "industry." So, it was supposed to be a "design" center--which was dumb, DFW already had a good market in those when they opened.
Then they "sought out" the small residential contractors--which was also dumb, the smaller guys weren't spec-ing $5K tubs. Then they just sort of morphed into HD not-lite, but filled with HD personnel from all over the DFW area.
They did have a really cool lighting center, when the first opened. They didn't have any of the parts available--but it was a cool display; now we go down to the lighting dealer an buy the parts you'll need for what we just saw . . . (another swuft biznez decision).
The Expo in Braintree MA is consistently mobbed with customers. Ok, not as crowded as in the first year, but still packed. Perhaps no one is actually buying anything. Perhaps they are all just browsing for ideas (like me). I think they would do better to specialize a bit more. It's obvious that the Kitchens and Bath stuff are where the customers are at. The Kitchen displays in particular are very crowded. They make a lame attempt at things like lighting and home furnishings, but no crowds in those departments. Also, there is plenty of competition in those products.
At the same time, other (smaller scale) retailers seem to be able to match or beat their prices on most things, including Kitchen cabinets.