Depot departments through the years
When it comes to home improvement sales, The Home Depot leads the league. The Atlanta-based retail giant posted $151 billion in fiscal 2021 sales, up 14% over 2020. And over the last two years, Home Depot grew its business by more than $40 billion.
How did they do it? One answer: one sale at a time, in 14 merchandise departments.
In the 10-year period tracked above, the Appliances department showed the most dramatic growth, climbing from the 12th position all the way to the number two spot. Annual Appliance department sales increased 169 percent from 2012 to 2021. That percent gain is second only to Decor/Storage, which was stuck in the 14th spot but was up 174% over the same 10-year period.
Indoor Garden (a category that includes big-ticket outdoor power equipment) took the lead among the 14 categories in 2016, and has remained at the top. The department represented 10.3% of total net sales for Home Depot last year, followed by Appliances (9.4%), Electrical/lighting (8.9%) and Lumber (8.8%).
Lumber showed a swift climb up the chart between 2019 and 2020 —years in which it jumped from 7.2% of sales to 8.6%. That 1.4 percentage-point increase in share of Home Depot sales was the largest single-year increase for any category in any year, and rising lumber prices certainly played a major role in the surge.
Over the same period covered by the interactive chart above, Home Depot’s total net sales have grown from $74.6 billion in fiscal 2012 to $151.2 billion in fiscal 2022.
