Home Depot Rolls Out 3-Hour Delivery Nationwide | Fast Five Shorts

Home Depot has rolled out its express delivery service nationwide, promising thousands of pro and DIY items in three hours or less and often under an hour for a flat $7 to $10 fee with no membership required.

According to Supply Chain Dive.

The Service uses Home Depot's supply chain network alongside more than 2,000 U.S. stores as fulfillment hubs.

Pro and DIY customers can use the delivery service for the fee in most major markets and a $10 flat fee in Los Angeles with no subscription or membership required.

Eligibility covers thousands of SKUs, including plumbing, hardware, paint and tools visible on product pages and in the cart at checkout.

EVP of Interconnected Retail Interesting title, jordan Brogy said on the company's August 18th earnings call.

Quote now the majority of those deliveries are actually happening in less than one hour and that Home Depot will, quote, continue to work that promised time down to customers in the months ahead.

End quote.

Joe, are you surprised at all by Home Depot's push for sub 3 hour delivery or do you think they are smartly trying to stay ahead of where the Home Depot shopper is taking them?

Home Depot has been working on this for a while now.

In the run up to Shop Talk Fall last year they announced that they are going to be investing significantly in even faster fulfillment and delivery.

Anne Marie Campbell from Home Depot was on our stage in Chicago last year talking about why they're doing that and I think, you know, she said it was very much about listening to the customer and seeing an opportunity to serve a need that currently wasn't being met very well.

That said, I mean I think for the category there's, there's two kinds of reasons why people go to a Home Depot, right?

There's, there's things that are long planned like a renovation project where you don't really have like that, that short time horizon when you absolutely need something.

But then there's, there's the moments when something breaks when you really do kind of have an emergency repair around the house.

And I think, you know, whether, whether an hour delivery is sort of optimal or you know, kind of that, that within three hour window works.

I think either way I see that Home Depot leaning into serving that need.

And I think, you know, they've been testing it for a year.

The fact that, that it's tested well enough that they're rolling it out nationwide kind of says to me that they're, they're, they're really smart and if there wasn't demand for it, they probably wouldn't be doing it.

So I give them the benefit of the doubt on that, that they are really kind of serving a need here and have figured out the economics to make it work at that price point.

Yeah, no, I think it's a smart move.

I mean I've told this story on the podcast before about needing a toilet snake very quickly and having to go to Walmart because of how quickly they could get it to me.

But because you know Joe, at the end of the day, the universal truth is that people want things fast and the US consumer appetite is already moving to sub one hour, let alone three.

And I mentioned it in the last headline too with Target.

This is why I kind of ding Target on that one, because this is where things are going.

If you're still talking about next day, you're kind of the train's already left the station because we've seen it month over month in particular in the brick meets click data, which is primarily around grocery.

But the growth, the grocery growth in, you know, ultra fast delivery is through the charts right now.

And now, you know, Joe, as you kind of alluded to, is home improvement the same as grocery?

No.

But who's to say it won't be more like it in the long run as far as consumer expectations go, you know, as Amazon and Walmart continue to set the expectation for things.

And so when I step back, the thing I say to myself, and that's where I give Home Depot's leadership a lot of kudos, is, you know, there's more risk in being wrong and not preparing for a faster home improvement consumer expectation than there is benefit in being right and not moving in that direction.

That's, that's what I think, Joe.

Yeah, and I certainly think there's a lot of opportunity to be thoughtful and careful about just the logistics and the costs of investing in faster delivery.

And certainly Home Depot's store footprint being able to fulfill from stores as opposed to centralized, purpose built distribution centers or something like that is going to give them an advantage.

And I guess I'd also say there's also clearly competitive pressure.

Lowe's in its earnings report last week also talked about its faster fulfillment and delivery capabilities being a big driver to its substantial growth in E commerce business for the past quarter.

So I think, I think both of the home improvement giants are kind of seeing this opportunity, this unmet need for consumers who do have something is broken and it needs to be fixed fast.

And I will pay a little bit of money to get the thing I need faster and not have to go to the store to pick it up.

Yeah, you're making me think about something too Joe, like the speed or the ultra fast delivery actually takes away.

What is the inconvenience of e commerce shopping of not knowing when it's going to arrive and need to be home?

If I can reliably expect my goods to be in my house in under an hour from when I push the button on my mobile phone, that takes a lot of that inconvenience away because I'm probably not going to go anywhere during that period of time where I can figure out something to do to keeps me home and keeps me there for the delivery, which for a lot of people can be a big deal.