Brenda Burch Dumont's Blog

Home Depot suppliers adjust as MET launch looms

Following a round of meetings with vendors last month, Home Depot Canada is preparing to begin the rollout of its Merchandising Excellence Team (MET) into its stores beginning Sept. 7.

The program brings in house the weekly merchandising and arranging of products on the shelves in all 179 Home Depot stores in the country. Those duties have been, until now, performed by outside service companies, often attached to rep agencies.

The electrical category will be included in phase one of MET and participating vendors are getting ready for the transition. “We’re part of MET and it will take over servicing of the light bulb category,” says Kris Ovstaas, director of consumer sales for Philips Lighting. “Our agency has given notice to its team. They are already departing to look for new jobs.”

While many of them will likely find jobs at Home Depot as part of MET, the transition may result in some disruption of weekly in-store detailing duties through the rest of the summer. “However, we have contingency plans to keep the stores properly serviced,” Ovstaas says.

Not all vendors will be required to participate in MET, however. Behr Paints, which is exclusive to Home Depot in this country, will continue to use its own service team. And so will TTI, which produces the Ryobi and Ridgid brands exclusively for Home Depot.

Craig Baxter, President of TTI Canada, was not surprised by the decision to exempt his company. “We’ve been told our store service is exemplary. There’s nobody that has more passion and know-how for this category than we do.”

His company is still making some adjustments, however. TTI’s team of 35 service people will grow to 40 by the end of the month, and he’s even installed an inventory analyst on site at Home Depot’s head office. “That person is working for Home Depot but is on our payroll,” he says.