Home Depot is partnering with a short-term rental platform so that when people are on vacation at one particular location, they’ll see what a trip or two to the retailer can do for them when they get home. Will customers staying at the Vrbo rental property make the connection to Home Depot and shop the retailer accordingly?

Many retailers saw dollar sales slow and profit margins drop over the first six months of the year and some have responded to this situation by cutting back on capital expenditures. Should retailers currently struggling with sales and profits seek to increase or decrease their capital expenditures at this time?

Ulta Beauty has become the latest retailer to officially launch a digital innovation venture fund. The fund will invest $20 million in startups “unlocking new technology that fuels greater discovery, personalization, and convenience.” What’s driving the apparent trend of retailers establishing venture funds to invest in digital startups?

In mid-June, The Home Depot handed out more than 125,000 “hdPhones,” or newfangled mobile devices, to store associates to help assist and speed customers’ journeys. Are mobile devices assigned to store associates elevating the customer experience or falling short of promises?

The Home Depot is seeking more than 100,000 new associates ahead of the chain’s spring season, its busiest of the year, at a time when finding staff for stores and warehouses has become more challenging for retailers across the country.  Will quicker turnarounds on job offers help Home Depot bring more job seekers on board?

As a number of major U.S. cities continue to grapple with the problem of violent, orchestrated retail theft, Safeway in San Francisco is rolling out restrictive solutions it hopes will stop the shoplifting mobs. Do you see Safeway’s introduction of barriers and other security measures as workable long-term solutions that will deter theft?

Home Depot is hiring Walmart to handle local deliveries for its stores.The retailers revealed today that they are teaming up to give Home Depot’s customers another way to have their online orders delivered on the same or next day.What does the Walmart/Home Depot GoLocal deal mean for each company?

With a seemingly never-ending series of hurricanes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters, federal authorities can quickly become overwhelmed. Reactions to Hurricane Ida again show how large retailers often help fill the void. What should be the first, second and third priorities in how big box retailers respond to natural disasters?

Home Depot has come up with a creative, tech-savvy way to thwart organized criminals from stealing tools off of their shelves. Do you see in-store activation at the point of checkout as being a good way to thwart organized theft rings?

A recent softening in the red-hot housing market and a reduction in homeowners tackling DIY projects has raised concerns about near-term growth rates for Home Depot and Lowe’s.  Do you see near-term sales pressures for home improvement chains as the U.S. economy opens up?

National Retail Federation’s monthly “Global Port Tracker” report showed record imports arriving at the nation’s ports as vaccines allow consumers to return to normal shopping patterns, but shortages are still preventing retailers from capitalizing on demand. How long do you see supply chain challenges lasting, and what impact do you expect them to have on the holiday selling season?

During the first quarter, over 90 percent of Dick’s Sporting Goods’ curbside orders were ready within 15 minutes, according to the company. Upon checking in at the store, half were delivered to the customer’s car in under 2.5 minutes. What expectations for turnaround times on curbside/in-store pickup should retailers set for in-store workers and customers?

Even with growing adoption, mobile shopping faces challenges in a number of areas that need to be addressed for retailers and their customers to get full benefit from the experience. What are the obvious and less obvious pain points around mobile checkout?

Even with COVID having a near existential impact on many retailers, the focus will remain squarely on corporate social responsibility (CSR) like never before in 2021.  Are companies being held to higher standards by consumers when it comes to proving commitments to corporate social responsibility?

Home Depot and Starbucks announced plans to increase regular wages for associates. What do you think is motivating Home Depot, Starbucks, Target and Best Buy to increase their wages for store associates?

A potential blockbuster national shopping holiday event, 10.10, and Amazon.com’s aggressive moves are providing more evidence that the holiday season will gain a significant jumpstart in October. What impact do you expect Prime Day, 10.10 and individual retailer sales promotions to have on Christmas holiday sales and fulfillment this year?

Rivals Home Depot and Lowe’s have each announced this month that they are taking steps to outpace the other when it comes to the delivery and pickup of online orders. Has the coronavirus pandemic created a paradigm shift in how consumers and professional customers purchase from home improvement retailers?

Same-store sales jumped 12.3 percent at Lowe’s and 7.5 percent at Home Depot in their first-quarters as sheltering Americans found time to tackle household projects. What factors will be most critical in determining the performance of home improvement retailers in the short- and medium-term?

Shoplifting is a perennial problem for retailers, but some sectors of retail have observed an uptick in an even more costly — and sometimes more dangerous — form of theft. What should retailers do to address organized retail crime as it continues to expand in severity and costliness?

Amazon.com and Home Depot are looking to up their delivery games, and a new three-story warehouse in Seattle may hold the key to their future plans.  Do you expect multistory warehouses in suburban and urban locations to become commonplace over the next decade?

In its earnings announcement this week, Home Depot said that same-stores sales in the fourth quarter rose 3.7 percent, below the 4.5 percent increase expected by analysts, because of weather conditions across the country. Do you think retailers fully understand the impact of weather on sales performance?

According to an evaluation of about 2,000 retail websites from OrderDynamics, only 38.1 percent of retailers show basic inventory visibility on product pages. How transparent should retailers be in giving consumers information on inventory availability?

Buy online, pick up in-store appeared to have reached a tipping point this past holiday season with more consumers taking advantage of the options. Do you see optimizing inventory, labor or some other aspect as the main challenge to BOPIS execution?

As Lowe’s Hardware struggles to turn itself around and get out of Home Depot’s shadow, it is branding itself with a new tagline that has struck some as a little familiar. Do you think Lowe’s under Marvin Ellison is developing a unique point of difference in its daily competition with Home Depot?

It didn’t take long for Lowe’s new president and CEO, Marvin Ellison, to begin shaking things up at the home improvement chain. Will his previous experience at Home Depot help Marvin Ellison develop a strategy to compete more effectively against Lowe’s larger rival?

Home Depot plans to install pickup lockers near the front of all of its stores in an effort to improve its buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) operations and become bottleneck free. What do you see as the pros and cons of Home Depot’s chainwide BOPIS lockers strategy?

Home Depot revealed plans to spend $1.2 billion adding distribution sites and shipping hubs over the next five years to speed delivery to most of the U.S. market within a day. What will achieving its goal of offering same- or next-day delivery to 90 percent of the U.S. population mean for Home Depot and its rivals?

Home Depot says it will invest $50 million to train 20,000 tradespeople over the next 10 years in order to fill a growing shortage of construction and other trade workers. What benefits do you see from Home Depot’s $50 million commitment to create trade jobs?

Extending its position as the one-stop solution for the home, Home Depot acquired The Company Store, the online seller of bedding, bath and related categories. Terms were not disclosed. In what ways do you see Home Depot benefitting from its acquisition of The Company Store?

While Christmas may not be as critical to the annual performance of the two chains as the spring cleanup and planting season, that doesn’t mean Home Depot and Lowe’s are complacent when it comes to trying to attract customers for the holidays. Which do you think does a better job of connecting with each company’s core customers while reaching out to new shoppers?

The data coming out about the first leg of the holiday season is beginning to reveal insights about the changing way people shop. What exactly they say about mobile commerce, though, is up in the air. Does increasing mobile traffic warrant greater retailer investment, even if there is not a corresponding increase in direct sales?

Home Depot’s shares are at an all-time high as the home improvement retailer has been buoyed by a continuing strong housing market and its investments in digital operations and elsewhere. Even national disasters have worked to Home Depot’s advantage. What do you see as the biggest improvements Home Depot has made to the way it operates in recent years?

Google is on a retail roll. Home Depot announced it will join Google Express this fall with shoppers being able to place voice orders using Google Assistant with the tech giant’s Home speaker device or mobile app. Do you expect to see many more retailers on Google Express to implement ordering via voice with Google Assistant?

In the wake of the unprecedented destruction caused by Hurricane Harvey, retailers and brands, both local and nationwide, have jumped in to aid in the recovery. What is the appropriate reaction from retailers or brands for national disasters on the scale of something like Hurricane Harvey?

Marvin Ellison is letting his Home Depot roots show once again. J.C. Penney’s CEO is behind the department store chain’s latest venture, which involves selling items directly to businesses placing bulk orders. Do you see B2B sales as a category in which J.C. Penney can achieve significant success?

J.C. Penney is looking more like a home improvement store with every passing day. That’s not such as stretch given that Marvin Ellison, CEO of J.C. Penney, is drawing on his experience as an executive at Home Depot in his effort to turn around the department store chain. Do you see a significant upside for J.C. Penney as it adds home improvement product categories and services?

If greeters worked for Home Depot, perhaps they can do the same at J.C. Penney. The department store chain, led by CEO Marvin Ellison, a former Home Depot executive, has been testing greeters at locations in the Northeast since the summer. Why do you think J.C. Penney’s test only includes using greeters during a two-hour window?

J.D. Power announced this week that consumers have ranked Ace Hardware as being highest for customer satisfaction among home improvement stores for the tenth straight year. What would Ace need to do to supplant Home Depot and Lowe’s at the top of the home improvement pack?

Remodeling a basement is no simple construction project for DIY’ers, but building an alien landscape or a plausible spaceship control center has taken Home Depot places it hasn’t gone before with its Fayetteville, GA location. How much do chains stand to profit from one-off store formats catering to a single industry or local demographic?

Consumers visiting appliance websites that have strong content and are easy to navigate are more likely to visit stores and make additional purchases, according to new research by J.D. Power. How do you see the way consumers shop for appliances changing over the next five years?

J.C. Penney has hired two senior executives from Home Depot and Target, both former employers of Mr. Ellison, to help make his omnichannel vision for the retailer a reality. How important is omnichannel to J.C. Penney’s continuing turnaround efforts?

A new report released this week has praised Home Depot for being “far ahead” of its home improvement store rivals when it comes to requiring flooring suppliers to stop using phthalates in the manufacture of vinyl flooring. How will the publicity around Home Depot’s phasing out phthalates in the vinyl flooring it sells affect the chain’s reputation with consumers?

While most retailers bank on a solid Christmas holiday selling season, DIY chains also look to the spring to boost sales. Home Depot, which first launched its “Spring Black Friday” event six years ago is carrying the analogy a step further with its first ever “Cyber Week” promotion. What are the pros and cons of echoing Christmas sale jargon throughout the year?

Do you have a project you need done around the house? You could ask friends, find a supplier through your local Home Depot or Lowe’s or join a referral service like Angie’s List…or you could also go on Amazon.com. Will Amazon’s reputation and happiness guarantee be enough to drive substantial trial of its Home Services?

Profit margins and sales-per-customer have their place of importance, but when it comes to succeeding in retail, three more human strengths are required, said Frank Blake, chairman of the Home Depot. What do you think of Frank Blank’s three tips for success at retail?

For some owners of big-name retail chains, the buildings in which the businesses reside are as important as the businesses themselves, and the most recent news in big retail real estate deals has raised more eyebrows than it has red flags. Could there be advantages to chains owning their own stores rather than renting in the new economy?

According to a survey by CreditCards.com, 45 percent of consumers would definitely or probably avoid one of their regular stores over the holidays if that retailer had experienced a data breach. Is the steady stream of breaches increasing apprehension around shopping to a degree that will affect holiday sales?

J.C. Penney’s board of directors has been dealing with criticism over the slow pace of its search to find a replacement for interim CEO Mike Ullman but as of yesterday, the department store can say with certainty that its new permanent CEO will be on the job as of Aug. 1, 2015. Aug. 1, 2015? What do you think of the biggest challenges facing Marvin Ellison as he joins J.C. Penney?

Home Depot confirmed yesterday that its POS systems were compromised by malware that may have begun collecting information on the chain’s customers going back as far as April. How will the data breach at Home Depot affect its business going forward? What is your evaluation of the chain’s response to date?

Home Depot is not going to renew its sponsorship of Joe Gibbs Racing when its contract expires at the end of the NASCAR season, according to a report by SportsBusiness Journal. Are sports sponsorships becoming more or less important to retailer marketing efforts today than in the past?