In 2018, home center stores in the United States generated revenue that amounted to about 245.5 billion U.S. dollars. The leading home improvement chain as of 2017 was The Home Depot which generated 101 billion U.S. dollars in sales that year. Lowe’s came in second with about 69 billion dollars in sales in 2017. When it comes to store count, Ace Hardware had over twice the number of stores of either The Home Depot or Lowe’s in 2017. However, Ace Hardware falls into the hardware store category and thus has a much smaller store size than home centers. According to J.D. Power, the top home improvement store chain in the United States by customer satisfaction rate was Menards, with a customer satisfaction rating of 836 (based on a 1,000 point scale).
The average annual home improvement expenditure per homeowner amounted to 6,649 U.S. dollars in 2017, up from about 5,100 dollars the year before. Some of the most common home improvement projects among U.S. homeowners are landscaping the yard, replacing or acquiring new appliances, and painting the interior of the home. Consumer demand for environmentally friendly products, along with government-imposed standards to limit environmental harm is shaping the home building and improvement market. Consumers are opting for greener options such as photovoltaic roofing and vegetative roofs. Homeowners are also motivated to renovate their properties to cut utility costs by replacing windows and opting for energy-efficient thermal insulation.
