Home Depot opening four new distribution facilities to fill pro orders

The Home Depot is expanding its supply chain infrastructure to support the needs of its professional customers. 

The home improvement titan is opening four new distribution centers geared toward serving pro customers in Detroit, southern Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Toronto during the first half of 2024. The new centers will stock large, bulky merchandise such as lumber, insulation, and roofing shingles. 

By operating a network of distribution centers stocking a variety of product types, Home Depot intends to enable industry professionals to order job lot quantities of the products they need to complete their entire projects, delivered directly to their job sites. 

Along with its supplier partners, The Home Depot says it is working to build depth of inventory in each of its top pro markets, with job lot quantities that are significantly larger than what it has historically offered through its stores alone. 

In addition, the retailer says when jobsite deliveries are fulfilled directly from a distribution center, there is less congestion in local stores from staged products in aisles and more inventory on hand for its in-store pro customers.

The company has already opened similar pro-focused hubs across the U.S., and by the end of 2024, expects to have 17 of its top pro markets equipped with new capabilities for pros. 

In addition to the new supply chain facilities, The Home Depot is building out its pro-targeted offerings and capabilities, including:

• Localized product assortment specially tailored for each priority market.
• A dedicated sales force in each of its priority markets.
• Digital tools and personalized experiences, including new order management capabilities to better manage complex pro orders.
• Trade credit, which is currently in pilot with a small number of pro customers; and
• Tiered pro pricing.

Home Depot provides pros with services

Home Depot offers a number of services geared toward home improvement industry professionals. These include the Pro Xtra loyalty program, as well as the Path to Pro network, a job training and placement website which is part of The Home Depot's larger Path to Pro program. Path to Pro is designed to help address the growing skilled labor shortage in the U.S.

• Announced at the end of 2020 and launched in 2021, the Path to Pro Skills Program offers a free training program for those interested in pursuing and growing a career in the skilled trades and prepares them for their first job.
• The company also operates an order fulfillment operation in the Atlanta area that offers same-day and next-day delivery of the most popular products primarily ordered by institutional business customers for their maintenance, repair and operational needs.

Home Depot also recently acquired Construction Resources, a distributor of design-oriented surfaces, appliances and architectural specialty products for pro contractors focused on renovation, remodeling and residential home building. Construction Resources operates showrooms across the East Coast and Southeast.

"Pros need a partner with the right product, depth of product, fulfillment capabilities, sales support and management tools to help them get their jobs done," said Chip Devine, senior VP of outside sales for The Home Depot. "Over the last several years, we have been investing to deliver a faster, more convenient, differentiated experience for our pros. Our distribution network is one piece of the comprehensive pro ecosystem we're building to better meet the needs of this important customer."

Headquartered in Atlanta, The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer. At the end of fiscal year 2023, the company operated a total of 2,335 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. The company employs approximately 465,000 associates.