The largest home renovation and building supply retailer in North America has options. As a consumer, understanding Home Depot’s standard services and its Home Depot Pro advantages will help your bottom line, whether you are a professional contractor or a DIY home renovator.
Home Depot Pro provides you with an array of customized features to increase your efficiency and maximize your purchasing value. Home Depot Pro requires membership registration and is a value-added program offered by Home Depot. Home Depot Pro is usually worth it if you’re a contractor or a frequent customer at Home Depot, but the rest of us can get by without a membership.
Let’s do a deep dive, so you will understand the advantages to Home Depot Pro membership. We’ll also look at some of the standard services offered by Home Depot and how Home Depot Pro can increase your purchasing power.
Home Depot Pro vs. Home Depot
Home Depot Pro is the ‘inside track’ for construction, renovation, building maintenance and related industry professionals across North America. With Home Depot’s dominance in the construction and repair supply chain, professionals know where to go and Home Depot has a special place for them to get what they need with the Home Depot Pro program.
From ‘contractor only’ convenient parking to vehicle loading assistance…..from in-store dedicated cashiers to phone-in order picking….from bulk volume discounts to employee-specific purchase authorization confirmations….from featured special pricing to in-store end-customer referral programs — a local contractor (general, trades or specialty) can take advantage of a generous number of services with a Home Depot Pro membership.
Let’s take a look at the Home Depot Pro features list:
- Dedicated Home Depot staff support
- Pricing programs
- Delivery options
- Equipment rental
- Specialized inventory items
- Financing options
- New product and technology alerts
- Smartphone and online digital tools
- Weekly pricing features
- ProXtra loyalty reward program
- Purchase tracking
- Color selection archive
- Previous order details
- Bookkeeping integration options (QuickBooks)
- Email alerts
- Pricing guarantees
- Payment options
With such a long list of advantages and no sign-up or membership fee, it is clear that any contractor or professional construction/maintenance business will want to register for the Home Depot Pro program.
Why doesn’t everyone become a Home Depot Pro member? Let’s look at why and how businesses and individuals might decide to join the Home Depot Pro program:
- Online, digital services
- Simple registration process
- Access to Home Depot’s credit options
What are some of the value-added project benefits?
- For businesses, access to Home Depot Pro’s online efficiencies is essential for bottom-line profit management
- Team coordination and inventory pick-up/delivery logistics are streamlined
- If saving money on large volume/frequent purchasing is important to your company, then Home Depot Pro is a decision with only advantages to gain
Even though Home Depot Pro offers such a wide range of advantages, it isn’t always worth the cost of membership, especially for people who shop at the store relatively infrequently. If you only go to Home Depot once a year, then you likely won’t get your money’s worth out of your Pro membership.
A Closer Look at In-Store Advantages
Time is money. When you assign purchasing and logistics arrangements for industry materials to your staff, you want their decisions and movements to be simple, quick, easily repeated and economical. You want to have the advantages of size (frequent buyer incentives), the advantages of industry pricing (discounts) and the advantages of expert advice.
Home Depot specializes in all of these features and packages them for industry professionals in their free Home Depot Pro membership. Participation provides access to Home Depot credit financing and special pricing, with the financial advantages at the cash register make membership obvious.
Home Depot stores are designed warehouse-style, as their focus continues to be on industry professionals. Offering loading assistance, convenient contractor-friendly parking (close to bay loading doors and with large-vehicle clearances), curbside pick-up with pre-ordering, dedicated cashiers for contractors and in-store Home Depot Pro contractor desk staff, there isn’t a question Home Depot can’t answer.
A Look at the Online Advantages
Home Depot Pro membership is a requirement for some of the finest online advantages to dedicated supply chain procurement purchases.
Your business can develop staff purchasing authorizations with Home Depot Pro’s online features. Previous orders can be referenced, in order to re-stock common items. Ordering can be processing online by using product numbers, in order to avoid the need to hunt through a website for items by name or department.
To augment a business’ internal documentation, purchase orders can be incorporated and job quotations can be created digitally (which you can send directly to your customers/clients). Receipts can be tracked, retrieved and, in a sophisticated and seamless receipt synching process, they can be entered into your company’s Quickbooks bookkeeping software system.
With so much of today’s small and medium business world going online, digital tools like the Home Depot Pro system offers can make the difference between profitability or not for your business. Take advantage of Home Depot Pro’s options and training opportunities in order to maximize your industry supply chain purchasing power benefits.
Marketing Advantages
If purchasing from one supplier means gaining business referrals, as compared to another supplier who might be adequate but doesn’t have the same industry clout, then we all know your business would be wise to go with the partner who can help expand your customer base.
Home Depot Pro is a means of networking and being connected with your industry’s presence in the local market. Think of Home Depot as the hub of the construction community in your area.
There are marketing advantages to gain through Home Depot’s referral program. Aligned businesses and trades people are promoted to all of Home Depot’s customers, including the newbie customer who arrives with an over-ambitious DIY project that now needs professional advice. To get into the stream of what is being built and renovated in your area, Home Depot Pro can become an entry-portal to your business’s expansion.
Home Depot Pro is the no-brainer access point for a wide array of business advantages for those who are frequent Home Depot shoppers. If you have a small business that requires frequent inventory purchases for construction, trades, maintenance, cleaning and design services, then Home Depot Pro is where you want to be. Membership is free. All of the regular advantages of shopping with the leader-of-the-pack brand, Home Depot, will be yours, plus added membership-only bonuses.