What Is Home Depot Commerce Essay

What Is Home Depot Commerce Essay Home Depot is the largest home center chain operating in 2,244 stores throughout the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and  China. Home Depot is considered to be the largest retailer of home improved goods, construction  products and services in the world. It  was founded by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank in Atlanta in 1979. The Home Depots proposition was to build home-improvement  warehouses, larger than any of their competitors facilities. The store inventory consists of about 40,000 different kinds of building materials, home improvement supplies, appliances and lawn and garden products for the needs of various projects. The Home Depot stores are always equipped with goods that are confined to a small area to match that areas specific market needs. www.homedepot.com is ranked on position 418 within .com and has 5,399 back links. The Site was launched at Tuesday, 04 August 1992. ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE BUSINESS MODEL Homedepot.com follows the B2C i.e. Business to consumer model. In B2C transactions, online transactions are made between businesses and individual consumers. B2C E-Commerce involves electronic retailing or e-tailing. At homedepot.com customers can browse catalogs when they want, place an order and the product of service will be delivered directly to them.  It is an online version of the store where customers can shop any hour of day and night without leaving their home and office. The revenue model followed by homedepot.com is sales of goods. Within the e-tailer the type of model used by homedepot.com is Clicks and bricks. It is a business strategy or  business model  in  e-commerce  by which homedepot attempts to integrate both online and physical presences. This model makes it far easier for a homedepot.com to establish an online presence than it is for a start-up company to employ a successful pure dot.com strategy. By using this model homedepot developed certain advantages, such as: Leveraging their  core competency. Multiplying existing  supplier networks distribution channels. A lower cost of capital. THE MARKETPLACE The Home Depot has more than 1950 places across the United States, China, Canada and Mexico.  Home depot stores have an average area of about 105,000 square feet and around 23,000 square feet of area outside of greenery. Inventory consists of different kinds of building materials, home improvement supplies, appliances and lawn and garden products for all of your project needs. The Home Depots retail stores offer skilled customers, like person who can repair and remodel particular services. Through committed service provider desks in more than 1,900 stores, skilled customers have right to use the loyalty programs, a pro bid room to handle large customer orders with volume discounts, directship programs, credit programs and other specialty sales initiatives. Home Depot operates under four different business segments: MARKET STRATEGY The strategic factors that helped in the growth and popularity of home depot are related to quality of product, its price, advertising for the products, store capacity, competitors, and customers independency and happiness. Good quality products are offered by Home Depot like garden supplies, lawn installation services home improvement products, for these products are offered too. Home Depot introduced a trial product store format that presented approx. 32,000 more square feet of selling area, due to which the selection of products and services broadened, also it provided with a more appropriate layout than the long-established stores. Collection of complementary product categories via stores that were designed based on a design centre, which facilitated Home Depot in storing more than 40k products in a year. New stores were brought closer to existing ones by Home Depot via a clustering strategy. An advantage was created by following this strategy via increasing the blockage of entry to competitors reducing rush in the current stores. This strategy also permitted the organisation to enlarge its advertising distribution expenses along a greater store area. Customer Cultivation is regarded as one of the prime strategies implemented by Home Depot. It is the consequence of the prerequisite of elevated qualified and in-store clinics, supportive, professional clinics and employees. An additional approach is centering on widespread announcement. Two years ago, Home Depot spent 895 million dollars on advertisements which accounts for 9.5 % more than its 2007 spending of 817 million dollars. Widespread advertisements provided Home Depot with a personal potential not in favor of remaining companies in the same industry. CUSTOMER VALUE PROPOSITION Customer value proposition  consists of the sum total of benefits which the firm   promises a  customer  will receive in return for the customers associated payment. Customer value proposition is specifically targeted to attract new potential customers instead of employees, partners or supplies.  It is a statement that is designed to convince customers that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than others in its competitive set. home depot provides a broad selection of quality products and services. Home Depot has the widest range of products, which are rated below rival market. They hire trades professionals so that the customer gets expert advice. Because of the technical support and better customer service the store has shown results which are unmatched in the business. As it is said, it is the good incident that brings the customer once more and its the word of mouth that brings other new customers, hence, customer satisfaction is one of the most important policy followed by company. Home depot selects very customer friendly oriented people. To improve the customer experience following steps is taken up by the company: Stores are getting modernize so that the perception of home depot is improved before the customer. In order to improve the customer service, a 24 hour hotline is being introduced. In order to improve customer service at Home Depot stores a new employee incentive program has been developed. REVENUE MODEL Estimated 20,068,000 visits over last 30 days. This Google Page Rank 7/10 website has a Traffic Estimate rank of 288.   homedepot.com is worth  $3,759,165. This makes homedepot.com the  93  most valuable site on Stimator.com. Home Depots first quarter  in 2010 is $725 million, up from $514 million a year earlier. Net sales  for the period  increased 4.3%  to $16.9 billion. Similar store sales increased 4.8%  company-wide for the period. COMPETITORS In the home improvement industry the main competitor of home depot  is  Lowes Companies (LOW). Home Depot leads in terms of sales revenue which is $66.2 billion and that of Lowes is $47.2 billion. Other competitors of home depot are Home Improvement Stores, Sears, Menard Inc., True Value Company.   Home Depot also faces competition from smaller independent stores. Builders First Source (BLDR), a company that manufactures structural and related building products for new construction. The advantage which Home Depot has against the smaller competitors is that in case of an economic downfall, it will be prevailing and thus taking back the old customers which were attracted to these small competitors earlier. C:UserscompaqDesktopmenard.jpg C:UserscompaqDesktoplowes.jpg COMPARITIVE ADVANTAGE Home Depot is financially better placed than Sears and Lowes. Home Depot maintains its strong price positioning and improves customer service and product quality.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Because of this reason home depot enjoys a competitive edge over Sears and lowes. The second competitive advantage for home depot is Menards products are perceived to be lower in quality than those of Home Depot even when the price for both are similar.  Ã‚  For the Quality of the products that it carries, Menards should not want to increase the price of its products. Another property that gives homedepot the competitive edge is differentiation. Home Depot has product differentiation as well as image differentiation. This provides a competitive edge over both Lowes and Sears. The Home Depot has essentially identified its two main market segments: The do-it-yourself (DIY) home improvement consumer and The professional business customer. CONCLUSION We have seen that how a b2c site (homedepot.com) operates. What is the business model behind the operation of home depot? It has helped customer to do shopping for the desired product by sitting at home/office and making payment on delivery by credit/debit card. The home depot is the market leader in the segment of home improvement retailing, much ahead of its competitors. The main reason of its competitive advantage is good quality, lowest prices and customer satisfaction. APPENDIX TABLE 1 DIRECT COMPETITOR COMPARISON homedepot Low PVT1 PVT2 Industry Market Cap: 47.47B 30.17B N/A N/A 30.17B Employees: 193,370 166,000 40,3001 3,0002 166.00K Quarterly Rev Growth 4.30% 4.70% N/A N/A 2.90% Revenue 66.86B 47.78B 7.90B1 2.01B2 47.78B Gross Margin 33.75% 34.80% N/A N/A 34.80% EBITDA 6.73B 4.98B N/A N/A 4.98B Operating Margin 7.38% 6.81% N/A N/A 7.47% Net Income 2.83B 1.78B N/A 64.20M2 N/A LOW  = Lowes Companies Inc. Pvt1  =  Menard, Inc.  (privately held) Pvt2  =  True Value Company  (privately held) Industry  = Home Improvement Stores 1  =  As of 2009  Ã‚  2  =  As of 2008  Ã‚   TABLE 2: Comparison of Major Warehouse Format Home Centers Store Attributes Attribute/Company HomeDepot HechingerHQ Builders SquareHomebase Store Count 174 30 144 73 Square Feet/Unit(000) 94 86 84 113 Sales/Square Foot $348.00 $224.00 $171.80 $169.90 FIG1 DAILY TRAFFIC TREND FOR homedepot.com FIG2 UNIQUE VISITORS FOR homedepot.com

Ejlert Lovborg and Hedda Gabler direction and casting

Briefly outline your casting ideas for the roles of Hedda and Ejlert Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg and then explain how you would direct your actors, in the scenes in which they appear together, in order to reveal their complex feelings for one another. As a director I would direct this play to have a naturalistic style. The play should be as though the audience were watching a small slice of the lives being lived in the Tesman house. Therefore I would use realistic furnishings. For the role of Hedda Gabler I would cast an actor able to show military inheritance through stature, bearing and voice. Hedda would have perfect, aristocratic posture, an air of arrogance and power, and a strong, manipulating voice. As written in the stage directions, the actor would be a â€Å"lady of 29† or thereabouts. She would be tall and slim; have â€Å"steel grey† eyes, and â€Å"medium brown† hair, â€Å"not particularly ample,† which would be put up in a loose bun. Hedda would wear dark coloured satin dresses. She would speak with a slow pace and leave pauses, so as to keep the other characters waiting on her words. Her wit would be dry. The actor who would play Ejlert Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg would be 33 years old. He would be quite slim, with short dark hair, bright green eyes, and a short beard. He would be dressed in a dark, fitting, three piece suit, â€Å"quite new,† with a matching top hat. He would be pale, with definitive cheekbones. He would have fast paced delivery of lines and a low pitch. His most prized possession would be the manuscript for his new book, which is his ‘child' with Thea Elvsted. As a rehearsal process I would ask the actors to write down their previous relationship before the actual written play starts. I would ask them to improvise scenes which are linked with there previous lives. For example when Hedda was about to shoot Ejlert when they were younger. I would also ask the actors to write their biography for their characters. During Act two where Hedda and Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg first meet in the play, Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg â€Å"seems a little embarrassed.† I would direct the actor playing Hedda to show her boredom with Brack and Tesman just before Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg enters. When Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg comes in, Hedda's change in mood would be sudden, her eyes would light up and her body language would show excitement. Hedda would be stimulated by the situation unfolding before her. When Thea arrives she will be able to play. As Hedda takes the album from the desk, I would direct the actor to not look at Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg but at Brack and Tesman. As she sits Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg would move closer and take a seat next to her, â€Å"not once† taking â€Å"his eyes off her.† Then whispering to her, â€Å"Hedda†¦Gabler.† His expression would show that he is still in love with her. As Hedda's next line, â€Å"Now! Sh!† would be said with a smile, she's happy she still has a hold ov er him and she can manipulate him. We see how Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg is still infatuated with her as he is disgusted with Hedda that she has thrown herself â€Å"away like that.† He also calls her â€Å"dearest Hedda† and â€Å"darling Hedda,† the actor would show how he wishes the best for her, and his desire to be loved by Hedda. When Mrs. Elvsted enters Hedda will be happy as she is now able to see how her actions will affect people's lives. Although she doesn't quite expect Mrs. Elvsted and Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg to be as close. â€Å"He says I've inspired him, too,† Hedda's reaction to this line would be envy, she wanted to be the inspiration, she wanted to be at the heart of something exciting, instead she is bored all day. When Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg declines the punch, he would look to Mrs. Elvsted with an expression of enthusiasm, Hedda would just look straight on at him with a false expression of admiration. Then Hedda smoothly changes tactic by adding that he must drink â€Å"because of other people.† As Mrs. Elvsted realises that Hedda is beginning to win the fight, the changes in status and moods between the characters would gain momentum. After Hedda says that Mrs. Elvsted came around in â€Å"a state of desperation,† She would calm herself and relax back into the chair, whilst smiling between Mrs. Elvsted and Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg, and nod at Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg next line. â€Å"Desperation,† Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg would sit bolt up looking between Hedda and Mrs. Elvsted with a questioning look. The sudden turn in the situation would give Hedda joy, and fuel her to go on, â€Å"Your going to a party,† she has again found how to control Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg. In the final part of Act three, Hedda and Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg say goodbye for the last time. Just as Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg is â€Å"about to leave,† Hedda reaches her hand out in his direction and says, â€Å"No! Wait!† She moves across to the desk, and begins unlocking the pistol case as she says her following line. He stands there, motionless watching her, hoping she has the answer to all that is wrong, a look of hope in him. As she turns from the desk Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg is slightly disappointed that Hedda is carrying a pistol, she hands it to him slowly as she says, â€Å"do you recognise it?† He takes a slightly angry tone as he remarks that Hedda â€Å"should have used it† before. Hedda clasps her hands around his during the line â€Å"well†¦! You use it now,† showing a small but significant sign of affection for Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg. When he leaves she would move slowly over to the stove momentarily stopping to retrieve the manuscript. The pull ing up a chair she would begin to burn the manuscript, page by page, ripping each one with an audible tear. Saying her lines slowly with a sneer. During her time with Là ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vborg, we see that Hedda Gabler can show affection for others, and we also see her most manipulative side. The softly spoken â€Å"vine leaves† image shows how Hedda controls others to gain the perfect circumstances for her dull life, these ideals of love give her happiness. When her ideals are not met, then her attitude changes and the characters are put into place until she is happy with what is happening around her.

Violence in TV and society

How the nature and frequency of violence in television programs and movies effects socializing and being socialized. â€Å"Sociology offers a perspective, a view of the world. The sociological perspective opens a window onto unfamiliar worlds†and offers a fresh look at familiar ones (Henslin3). † With socialization being such a huge part of our daily lives, it is important that we get the right socialization. Today much of our youth's socialization skills are being obtained from mass media sources, and in particular social networking and television.A single glance at a children's television show gives you only a slight limpse of the violence portrayed in todays children TV shows. As Americans we are exposed to violence on a daily basis. Just turning on the TV we are bombarded with news of violent acts, and violent TV shows or movies. This has changed violence into a symbol of despair, and a solution to most situations. Thus changing our perspective of symbolic interactio nism, and its relationship to becoming socialized negatively. The symbolism of violence has been altered, desensitizing us to violent acts.Dave Grossman argues that this is something that has long been used in the ilitary to train soldiers to perform their duty, however these same techniques have been used unintentionally on the general population which more drastic effects. Because this desensitization is taking place during childhood rather then in late teens and early twenties, the social constraints that are normally emplace to prevent people from acting out such as norms and sanctions have not been instilled the same way they would be in a 18 or 19 year old. The results have been a drastic increase in violence.Television is by far the medium of mass media socialization. Children watch an average of 3 to 4 hours of television a day (AACAP). It has a huge effect on young children. Children are watching people interact, but are not actually interacting. Time that should be spent o utside interacting with other children has been replaced with televisions, which dramatically reduces children's social sills. Television satisfies social needs to some extent but does not give real life social skills that can be used. Along with decreased social skills, children are becoming socialized the wrong way.The majority of children perceive things on television as real. â€Å"When young children see somebody shot, stabbed, raped, brutalized, degraded, r murdered on TV, to them it is as though it were actually happening. To have a child of three, four, or five watch a â€Å"splatter† movie, learning to relate to a character for the first 90 minutes and then in the last 30 minutes watch helplessly as that new friend is hunted and brutally murdered is the moral and psychological equivalent of introducing your child to a friend, letting her play with that friend, and then butchering that friend in front of your child's eyes.And this happens to our children hundreds upo n hundreds of times. † (Grossman) Is this the way we really want our kids to become socialized? To answer this question we must dig deeper, and discover what it really means to become socialized. As stated by our book, â€Å"Socialization makes us human† When we are born, we do not know what it means to be human. We do not nave any ideas. We do not know now to speak, or now to act . We must learn now to do all these things, and only then, do we develop a self.With socialization being such a huge part of becoming† human† it is essential to get the right kind of socialization, which includes Symbolic interactionism. (Henslin) The symbolic interactionism perspective of sociology views society as a product of everyday social nteractions of individuals. Symbolic interactionists also study how people use symbols to create meaning. In studying violence, these theorists look at how people in everyday situations define violence, which differs between cultures and set tings. (Spark notes) In the US particularly violence has become part of the norm.Most children start out watching kid friendly and educational programs, and around the ages of three or four start watching shows like Tom and Jerry and Loony toons. Although these shows are somewhat kid friendly they still portray violence as acceptable. Violence is portrayed to be comedic. Thus desensitizing kids to violence in an indirect way. As children grow older, parental controls grow loser, allowing children to watch more violent, and adult rated TV shows, and movies. The exposure to violence at such a young age alters values, and norms.Children begin to perceive violence as normal, and as a solution to everything. Children's shows like Ben10, Looney Toons, and Power rangers portray † the good guys† trying to save the word, by taking drastic and most likely violent measures. The â€Å"cool† factor of these shows is actually kids becoming more and more desensitized to violence . Although these shows have not been proven to turn a normal child into a deviant. â€Å"Hundreds of studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may become â€Å"immune† or numb to the horror of violence.They may gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems, or imitate the violence they observe on television; and identify with certain characters, victims and/or victimizers (Grossman). † Keeping in mind that Socialization is the core of our existence and ability to interact with others, we can gather that excessive violence on TV shows, has huge negative impact on children's socialization skills, and most importantly that it affects the symbolic interactionism that takes place in all stages of socialization.

The Wedding - Original Writing - 845 Words

The Wedding Long ago, in the Southern elf kingdom, lived a young elf named Arodir, but everyone called him Aaron. Ever since he was born, his parents, the king and queen, were planning on who their son should marry. They soon heard of a beautiful princess from a far kingdom in the North. She was tall, thin, well mannered, and very sophisticated. Her name was Nindes. Aaron s parent s loved hearing about this young lady and thought their son would too. While his parents were away, he went out in search of a bride himself. He found a commoner s girl in the village square. She was tall, beautiful, kind, and very polite. While she was volunteering at the local orphanage, he decided to talk to her. As the children took their nap, they†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Son,† his father began, â€Å"You need not worry yourself over a commoner. It is against our custom for a royal to marry a peasant!† His mother interjected, â€Å"Not only that, we already found you a bride!† She said happily. â€Å"Her name is N†¦Ni†¦oh what was her name?† â€Å"Nindes, dear.† His father replied. â€Å"If it is alright with you, I do not wish to - â€Å" â€Å"Now Arodir, your father and I have already made up our mind. Now if you will excuse us.† Aaron’s parents then retired to their bed chamber. Aaron, who followed his parents decisions, sulked in his room and thought to himself, â€Å"What if I don’t enjoy being with Nindes like I do with Nina?† Although overcome by his worries, he trusted his parents and their decision for his marriage to the princess. That Saturday, Nina and Aaron spent the whole day together. During lunch, Aaron told Nina, â€Å"I am to marry Princess Nindes of the North Kingdom, but I am afraid I won’t enjoy being with her as much as I do with you.† Nina started to giggle at his statement but Aaron didn t notice. As the day went on, Nina noticed Aaron was distracted and didn’t pay attention to her while she was talking. â€Å"Are you even listening to what I’m saying, Aaron?† Nina started getting impatient. â€Å"I-I’m sorry Nina,† Aaron stated sheepishly, â€Å"I’m getting so worked up about marrying the princess I guess I didn’t hear what you said.† â€Å"I said, ‘I need to get going.’ It’s getting late and my parents will start to worry.† â€Å"Wait! I-.â€Å" Aaron wanted