Home Depot

Retailing is evolving very quickly due to the influence of the internet, smartphones, social media and more sophisticated consumers who are increasingly pressed for time and want to shop in a way most convenient to their lifestyles. Progressive retailers are taking note of digital trends and looking to unify their online and in-store experiences as a way to entice, connect and better engage with customers year-round.

This issue's Check it Out profiles a company that couldn't be more aptly named for the department: Coupons at Checkout. Yes, check out what this company is doing on retailers' checkout pages. OK, enough with the bad forced puns and onto the serious business.

For this installment of the Retailer Web Performance Report Card, I looked specifically at response times and availability for big-box retailers Wal-Mart and Home Depot, as well as wholesale warehouse giant Costco. Despite relying heavily on brick-and-mortar locations, these retailers need to keep online shoppers a priority. The stress of managing busy holiday web traffic is over and the industry is in transition before spring, but website monitoring and attention to online visitors shouldn't take a break.

Just like in brick-and-mortar sales, the final purchase is where the rubber meets the road in digital sales. However, a lot of heavy lifting needs to happen in customer engagement and selling before that final purchase. When smart, effective and consistent, this engagement quickly results in a purchase transaction and fulfillment follows. While most online retailers have been paying some attention to the transactional part of the purchase, such as shopping cart and payment processing (although we see some gaps here as well), they could do far better in the up-front engaging and selling that enable the sale.

At the closing session of the National Retail Federation's Big Show in New York City yesterday, executives from Home Depot and ANN Inc., parent company of Ann Taylor and LOFT, discussed the role social responsibility plays in their companies.

How did Sandy treat you? Did it have a positive effect on your business? A negative effect? Did you have to close stores or hold off on deliveries? Let us know by going to Retail Online Integration's Facebook page to comment.

For retailers that sell home repair items and emergency supplies, a storm like Hurricane Sandy represents a logistical puzzle and a big sales opportunity. Few retailers have in place plans as firm as these retailers do for when a storm hits. Like its competitors - Wal-Mart and Lowe's - Home Depot's corporate eye was squarely on Hurricane Sandy a week ago, when the company's supply-chain managers and merchants began preparing for the advancing storm by moving high-demand goods

Hurricane Sandy is threatening to reduce sales of clothing and holiday gifts during one of the most important shopping months of the year, while benefiting supermarkets and home-improvement stores such as Home Depot Inc.

Home Depot prides itself in being an innovative company that's always at the forefront of new technologies. The brand's use of digital gift cards speaks to that culture of innovation.

The Black Keys aren't shilling power tools or pizza, the band said in copyright infringement lawsuits against The Home Depot and Pizza Hut. The "Lonely Boy" band filed the federal lawsuits last Thursday, claiming Home Depot didn't have permission to use elements of the hit song in an ad promoting power tools and that Pizza Hut misused "Gold on the Ceiling" in a recent ad. Both songs appeared on the rock group's seventh album, El Camino, which was released last year and has sold nearly 840,000 copies. The Black Keys are comprised of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney.