"Weaknesses: What could you improve? What should you avoid? And what are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses? Do other people seem to perceive weaknesses that you do not see? Are your competitors doing any better than you? It is best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible." (SWOT, n.d.)
Home Depot Weaknesses
Home Depot is experiencing a slowdown in growth over the last 12 month. Some of the Factors which contribute to Home Depot's slowdown are: A highly saturated Do-It-Yourself (DIY) home improvement market is running out of growth opportunities, Rising interest rates have forced consumers to tighten their purses and delay home improvements, customer service and inefficiencies in merchandising and distribution leading to stock-outs. (Speight, 2004)
In the area of customer service analyst point towards the only competition, Lowe's as the main reason for the lagging sales.
English: The Home Depot in Knightdale, North Carol...
English: The Home Depot at the North Pointe Shoppi...
English: Overview of Home Depot store "Centro" loc...Lowe's decided to reinvent the way it did business in the early 1990 when Home Depot surpassed it to become the nations largest DIY retailer. One of biggest changes Lowe's made was who to target women. Lowe's conducted a survey and found that 80% of home improvement decisions were made by women and capitalized on it. Home depot on the other-hand continued to target men and contractors.
Over the past thirty-six months interest rates have continued to rise. Home Depot has been moving into new markets and expanding at a rapid pace even while its existing stores are seeing deterioration in their operating efficiency. Part of this may be due to increased competition from Lowe's. "Though sales improved 9.8%, the total square footage of the company's stores increased by 23%. Assets invested in property, plant, and equipment jumped by a whopping 27.3%. Combine the slightly decreasing margins with the a...