Environmental Analysis

Home is the largest investment and pride for homeowner. For as long as Americans have owned homes, they have longed to improve them through remodels, renovation and decoration. The recent success of television shows such as Extreme Makeover and Trading Spaces, Americans are rolling up their sleeves on weekends in an attempt to put forth their best impersonation of Martha Stewart. Compounding America's fascination with home improvement and the recent rise in home ownership, the home improvement retail industry has benefited greatly over the past five year period. Up until the early 1990's the home improvement industry was highly fragmented between hardware stores, paint and wallpaper stores. Intertwined between the independently owned cooperative True-Value and Ace Hardware stores and corporate owned stores such as Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams were independently owned and operated.

Most recently, many of these smaller storefronts have been forced to close due to dwindling sales and their inability to match the fierce pricing battles they face when competing against the likes of Home Depot and Lowe's. For those that have survived, they have been forced to undertake large plans of expansion both within their stores by adding additional square feet and in terms of their regional footprint through the addition of new stores and acquisitions. Current estimates place the retail home improvement market at $316B (EBSCOHost , Home Improvement Retail Industry Profile: Global; Apr2006, p1, 20p). In light of the changing nature of the industry and the continual addition of new offerings, such as the recent trend in providing do-it-for-me services and appliances, it is likely that the overall market value is towards the higher end of this range. Even with the dominance of Home Depot and Lowe's, the retail home improvement industry is still by many standards considered highly fragmented.

Home Depot and Lowe's, the number one and two market share leaders, account for approximately 40% of the overall market based on revenue. After Home Depot and Lowe's, no other retailer accounts for more than 3% of the total market share with other retailers' operations being largely organized on a regional basis (e.g., Menards, 84 Lumber) or organized under a cooperative arrangement with other independent member owners (e.g., Ace Hardware and TrueValue) who generally have smaller retail stores than their big brothers, Home Depot and Lowe's.

Source Homedepot.com

When we look at home improvement spend we see three drivers. Activity Based spend which is 20% primarily existing housing turnover and new home start, Refurbishment spend that accounts for 24% driven by the age of housing stock for instance roof needs to be fixed, or home appliances breaks need new appliance. The reminder 56% is discretionary spend. This chart gives overview of what we see happening in Home Improvement market in general terms.

Some of the key Macroeconomic variables that affect Home Improvement industry are GDP growth, Inflation, Existing Home sales, Consumer Confidence, Disposable Personal Income, Unemployment, Interest Rates.

Figure 1 source EIU data service

Real GDP grew 3.2% in 2005 as compared to 3.91% in 2004. The major contributors to the increase in real GDP growth in 2005 were personal consumption expenditures, equipment and software, exports, goods and services and residential fixed investments as shown in figure 2.

Figure