Things Big Box stores can do to keep from going extinct
Over the weekend, I went to lock the deadbolt on my door leading to the garage and realized something was wrong with it. The locking mechanism jammed, and I used considerable force to lock it. It’s one of those things that you know needs to be replaced. No amount of WD-40’s going to fix worn-out locking gears. Replacing a deadbolt is something you want to do immediately. So my first thought was Home Depot. So I went to homedepot.com and searched and filtered through the locks. I roughly knew what I wanted. I started with brands that I know I like, starting with Schlage. Okay, more than I want to spend, I don’t love Kwikset, moving on.
Here’s a Yale lock, trusted brand, reasonable price. Oh damn, it’s only available online. Then I look at the online options. I can order it and have it sent to me four days from now, or I can choose to order it and have it sent to the store, so then I can go to the store and pick it up…5–7 days from now. What? Who would pick this option? Why would you choose to have it shipped to the store, just for me to drive over there and pick it up with slower delivery? Okay, keep searching. Another Yale looks similar to what I wanted…wait, it’s not available at my store. Okay, expand my radius….yes, I’ll give my browser permission to my location…..oh no deadbolts within a 100-mile radius. Do I want to expand my radius? Hell yeah, I’d love to drive 200 miles to pick up a lock.
At this point, I went over to Amazon to see what was available there. Like many others, I buy almost everything from Amazon. I prefer not to, but their website is clean, search is fast and accurate, prices are always as low as any brick and mortar, but best of all, they have EVERYTHING. I found that Yale deadbolt I wanted shipping faster than it would have been via Home Depot. Before buying it, though, I went to YouTube and watched a review video. There’s a YouTuber for everything, and sure enough, someone had reviewed that particular deadbolt. I added it to my cart, but before I bought it, I took a quick trip to my local Home Depot as I really was hoping to be able to buy it today.
When I got to the Home Depot, I realized what they were doing wrong. To better compete with Amazon, box stores need to carry more items, more brands and have a more extensive selection. To do so, they need to rearrange their store. If you go back to my shopping process, Amazon has proved that customers will buy just about anything with the help of YouTube. Because of this, all the huge displays are a waste of space. Shopper’s habits have changed, and stores need to change their layouts. The stores need a hybrid between a conventional store and a more efficient warehouse layout.
Here’s a picture I took of the deadbolt aisle. The deadbolts are prominently displayed, front and center for me to see. Why? They aren’t functional, and they’re affixed to a faux wall. What’s the purpose of this? I can touch them in case I forgot what cold steel feels like or if I want to pick up someone’s germs, but why are they on display at all?
Let’s look at the paint aisle. Here we have half an aisle that is only paint color cards. It has the feeling of a greeting card shop section at Target; however, unlike Target, these cards are just for the customer to get a color sample that you take the paint section to have it mixed. They have no purpose otherwise.
Here we have the tool aisle. Lots of tools on display for everyone to see. Ah, that’s a lovely Ryobi table saw. Wait, the damn thing is bolted to the display shelf. I can’t pick it up, move it, nor is it even plugged in. It’s a germ-covered display unit. Several rows of tons of wasted space here.
This one might be my favorite. There’s a whole display of commodes; however, they’re not even at eye level. They’re way up high and mounted at an angle, so you cannot get a look at any of the detail. You can’t even get an idea of the size or a frame of reference. You can’t even take a crap in them, for Christ’s sakes!
The entire store is filled with this kind of setup and needs to be removed. Knowing that Amazon has proved that the consumer will gladly purchase just about anything sight unseen with the help of YouTube, Home Depot can easily replicate this setup in-store. Here’s how:
The store needs to be carved up into about four different sections. When the customer enters the store, they walk into a cute, faux house, rather than walking past hand wipes, cleaning supplies, etc. You wander around through every miniature version of a house, including bathrooms, storage, and garage. You’ll have tablets with the entire catalog of the store on them. Rather than looking at items bolted down, they’ll be high-definition pictures of each and every item. Swiping through everything, I’ll have the option to tap on each item and watch a YouTube-style video for each item. Home Depot should invest in a national studio and have high-quality videos created in English and Spanish for each item. Reviews, installation guides, product overviews, etc.
You’ll be able to bypass this and go down to the shopping area, for the lack of a better term. This area will have the hardware, adhesives, cleaners, pipes, fittings, etc. These kinds of items are stored about as efficiently as can be stored. Shoppers usually can find everything here and require no wasted display areas. The same goes for the lumber area, although some aisles are pretty wide. I am sure they’ve looked at space planning and have decided that there’s a good reason for this.
The store’s back will be off-limits to customers and will be a warehouse for employee access only. These aisles can be narrower than now and will have high, sturdy shelving to accommodate more merchandise.
Now, back to the front of the store in the little faux house setting. Customers shop for items formerly on display via tablet stations with large screens. If they’re there for paint, they can swipe through pages and pages of colors and have the paint created right from there.
The paint people no longer need to be on display for the world to see like it is currently. They can work out a much smaller space in the back and bring the paint on the flatbed to the customer when it’s ready. I could have browsed the deadbolt station, tapped a button, and an associate could have brought it out to me.
I forgot to mention this earlier, but when I was looking for a deadbolt, I found one that I thought was pretty close to what I was about to buy from Amazon, so I looked all around, but the boxes were messy and did not match the area where they should have been in which just added to my frustration. In the scenario I laid out, the customer never has the chance to mess up the aisles. The associate brings the item out to you.
Naturally, your associates would have to be well trained to help the customer operate the technology for those that need it. Still, I believe that most customers would get a better idea of what the products perform like and get a better sense of how they might work from watching a short product video rather than touching a non-functional display unit.
These viewing tablets would also need to double as registers. I should be able to tap on my deadbolt, then tap on a new purchase and have a new QR code. Then, I should be able to bring up the app on my phone, take a picture of the QR code and complete my purchase from my phone.
If I want to keep shopping, the associate can bring my item. Then, I can walk around to the other, customer-designated store areas to keep the classic brick-and-mortar style experience that I and many others appreciate.
I would hope that a store such as Home Depot could carry 30 to 40 percent more merchandise with this kind of layout than their current layout. Customers want variety, and we can get it from Amazon, so this needs to change. More brands, more variety is what they need. Stores such as Home Depot tend to only work with certain manufacturers, something they need to end. They should also do stock stores that are relatively close together with considerably different merchandise.
Depending on how far apart they are, most shoppers would make a 10–15 min trip if they could be assured that they’d be able to get their desired merchandise at the nearby store.
For a shopper such as myself, I would like to browse the exact same as what is displayed in the Home Depot stores. After viewing the content and reviews that I previously described, I’d like to be able to buy it and then have it waiting in a locker in store for me to pick up. I know that box stores would prefer that I go through their mazes and purchase additional items on the way, but that’s too big a risk of losing my business completely.
Ultimately, box stores need to slowly convert to a quasi store/warehouse/shipping center vs. a conventional store-like setup to compete with Amazon. To complete this, they need to fill the last piece of the puzzle, and that’s shipping. The easiest and quickest way to go about this is to partner with local shipping, fleet, and delivery services companies to offer next-day or same-day shipping to their customer’s homes or businesses.
A store such as Home Depot might want to consider playing the long game and start purchasing their fleet. They should strategically buy land or existing buildings situated between their stores so that they can pick up from several stores and deliver within 1–2 days.
I realize that everything I laid out is a radical departure from the current models. I’d think that a brand such as Home Depot has to choose several pilot program stores to ensure they don’t alienate any of their existing customer bases. Still, with some heavy, positive marketing, I believe that it’s in their best interest to at least give it a try.
