Lowe’s makes merchandise moves

Lowe’s is expanding its portfolio of brands.

In the retailer’s recent earnings call, Bill Boltz, executive vice president of merchandising, talked about several initiatives happening at Lowe’s.

“First, we’re adding a portfolio of drinks from Coca-Cola to reduce the number of stops Pros make before going to the job site, which is important since time is money for these customers,” he said.

“Second, we are adding Carhartt Apparel, popular with both our Pro and our DIY consumer, especially in our rural stores.”

“Third, we have entered a new national partnership with Hubbell, giving us access to all of their pro-branded electrical boxes, including Bell, TayMac, and RACO,” said Boltz.

“And fourth, we are excited to be bringing back Klein Tools. This is the number one hand tool brand among electrical and HVAC professionals.”

In the product category, Lowe’s said it will continue to build on customers preference for new and innovative products with continued enhancements to our product assortments.

“We are expanding on our popular Kobalt 24-volt platform with new tools and technology,” said Boltz, “including a cordless Kobalt nailer that can instantly fire 1,100 nails on a single charge.”

The company said it is excited about their new Ego zero turn radius mower with the industry’s first e-Steer technology.

Also, the retailer said it is upgrading its paint departments and has started the launch of Stainmaster paint. This is Lowe’s first-ever private brand paint.

More initiatives

“We continue to remove friction from the customers’ online experience, which includes adding Apple Pay this quarter, to improve conversion,” said Lowe’s President and CEO Marvin Ellison. 

They’re focusing on what Ellison called the “customers’ omnichannel shopping journeys, like for appliances where customers often shop our showrooms before making their purchase online.”

The executive pointed to Lowe’s continuing to make strides in the rollout of their market delivery model for appliances and other big and bulky products.

“We added two new geographic areas this quarter, bringing us to 10 geographic regions across the country supporting more than 1,000 stores,” he said.

“And as a reminder,” Ellison added, “in the market-based delivery model, big and bulky products flow from our supply chain directly to customers’ homes, replacing our inefficient store delivery model.”

During the conference call, the company turned attention to Canada.

“We completed the sale of our Canadian retail business to Sycamore Partners this quarter. As a result, we are now solely focused on the transformation of our U.S. business, where we estimate we have a $1 trillion addressable home improvement market,” Ellison said.

The CEO added: “There is a wide range of conflicting opinions on what’s going to happen in the macro environment in 2023. From our perspective the core drivers of our business, disposable personal income, home price appreciation, and the age of housing stock, remain supportive.”

Also during the earnings call, discussed the topic of wage investment, and the financial commitment Lowe’s has made to their front-line associates.

“Since 2018, we’ve invested over $3 billion in incremental wages and share-based compensation for front line associates, including $170 million wage investment we made last year,” he said.

“And over the past four years, we’ve increased hourly wage by more than 20%. Over the next three years, we’re going to invest nearly $1 billion,” said Ellison.

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Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed some of the remarks made by CEO Marvin Ellison to EVP Bill Boltz.