When you're stuck at home all day, you start to see all the things you said you'd fix or improve. And after you stare at those for enough time, you want to start doing them. That's why Home Depot and Lowes, the two places you'd go-to for that sort of stuff, have had a very busy lockdown season that's still going strong.
But! While trips to the hardware store are fun, the Home Depot and Lowes discovered that selling via a tiny screen can be as good as selling in a huge warehouse-like store.
According to our estimates, in 2019, the Home Depot and Lowe's saw around 750K and 550K downloads every quarter, respectively. There was some variance, but overall those averages were pretty consistent with the previous year, too.
But then lockdowns hit, sending demand way up while forcing transactions to take place safely via app, which gave both chains (but more so Home Depot) a massive Q2 in 2020. The orange giant added more than 2M new users to its app while its blue rival added 1.5M, a huge multiple over previous quarters.
Demand dropped in Q3 but remained very high since, and more than a year later, isn't showing any signs of declining. Home Depot ended Q3 of this year with 1.4M downloads, 69% more than Q3 of 2019, and Lowe's added 1.2M users in the quarter, up 132% from Q3 of 2019.
The (second) gold rush is here!™ - It's 2021, and we're in an app-first world, and it isn't just shopping. For consumers, things are convenient and in some cases, even cheaper, the experience is pretty good, and there's a lot of variety. For developers, the opportunities are bigger than ever before. I hope you're taking advantage of that.
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