America’s Favorite Home Improvement Retailer

Ann-Marie Vazzano

It’s not Lowe’s and it’s not Home Depot. Ace Hardware earned the No. 1 spot in J. D. Power’s 2014 Home Improvement Retailer Satisfaction Study. Menards came in second, followed by Lowe’s, Home Depot, True Value and Sears. According to the study, staff and service are the most influential factors in satisfaction once a shopper is at a home improvement store, but price is what drives customers to a retailer to begin with.

“For local home improvement retailers to remain competitive with big box retailers, they need to differentiate themselves through promotions, sales and overall pricing to help get customers in the door and then reinforce their decision to visit that store by providing an exceptional staff and service experience once they are there,” says Christina Cooley, director of home improvement industries at J.D. Power.

The study measures customer satisfaction based on performance in five areas: merchandise (including availability, selection, usefulness of product information displays and variety of merchandise offered); price; sales and promotions; staff and service (including availability, courtesy, ease of checkout, ease of returning merchandise and knowledge); and store facility (including availability of parking, cleanliness of store, convenience of store location, ease of finding merchandise, and store layout and design). Here are some of the study’s key findings:

• Price is an important reason (47%) for choosing a primary home improvement retailer, an increase from 38% in 2013.
• 53% of customers look at the original price first, then sales and promotions, when considering which home improvement retailer to select as their primary store. Fewer customers indicate having received promotional flyers in 2014, compared with 2013 (43% versus 56%, respectively), with the average number of flyers decreasing to 12 from 17 year over year.
• 17% of customers purchase merchandise online from their primary home improvement retailer.
• The average amount customers spend per year on home improvement merchandise is $1,780 in 2014, compared with $1,626 in 2013—an increase of $154.
• Among home improvement retailer customers, 28% say they definitely will repurchase from their home improvement retailer again and 33% definitely will recommend their home improvement retailer.
• Overall customer satisfaction with home improvement retailers is 768 (on a 1,000-point scale), up  from 758 in 2013. GP