The Home Depot, Inc. (HD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Day 2 of the 11th Annual Retail Roundup Conference. Lots of news out last night. It's my pleasure to have EVP and CFO of The Home Depot, Richard McPhail with us again this year. We really appreciate you coming to our conference.

Absolutely. Great to be here, Chris. Thank you for having me, and thanks, everyone, for being here this morning.

So address the elephant in the room. We'll kick it off with tariffs first. I don't know if anyone has asked you about that recently.

Yes. We had a few questions, those of you in the 8:00 session. So yes, did something happen last night? People seem to be...

I was going to bring the board. We were going to...

So look, we've been preparing for any eventual announcement for some time now. And in fact, you could even say we've been preparing and becoming, I think, one of the most well-managed companies from a cost perspective since maybe the year 2010. And so when you talk about tariffs, we can't talk about them without mentioning how we manage costs every single day. And so back in 2010, 2011, we formed a group called the Cost Finance Group. This group is a group within finance. So they maintain independence, but they advise our merchants on product costs and negotiating strategies and negotiating positions. And you can think of it as a bunch of young, hungry cost economists to break down bills of materials, so they understand the should cost from a product perspective for all of the products that we source. We understand manufacturing cost curves. So where do you manufacture, how much volume are we providing to you in your manufacturing facilities? What does that do for your economics? What benefits are we providing from scale? We understand supply chain costs, ocean, domestic, and we understand currency fluctuation, right? So in normal course, we are having always-on conversations about cost with our vendors. These are partnership conversations. Our vendors have won with us. We've won with our vendors. I'd tell you, if you think about it, since 2019, we've grown $50 billion. Our closest competition has grown something like $12 billion top line over that period. So our vendors are winning with The Home Depot. When it comes to tariffs, that's just another cost in the equation that we have to understand mutually. And I would say that we are as well positioned as anyone in the North American economy today to understand cost in real time to have real-time conversations about how to mitigate that cost. We've had a stance really for decades, but certainly maybe more intently since 2017, during the first round of tariffs to further diversify our supply base. And so our vendors have been willing participants who have successfully helped us achieve a much different footprint today than we had in 2017. Today, a majority of the goods that we sell are produced in the United States. And so that is unique to The Home Depot versus other sectors of the economy. The remainder of products that we source, certainly, Asia is an important region of sourcing for us. We've diversified away from China in a significant manner since 2017. And so that diversification will be an ongoing strategy for us. As far as what was announced last night, we're digesting it along with everyone. But I would say that we're as well placed or better placed than anyone I could think of to manage through this.

Great. Maybe some -- I think in the past, you've provided some more direct specificity around source and exposure. So anything that you could share there? And can you talk about your pricing strategy and how we would approach tariffs.

Right. The sourcing...

Like China versus Mexico.

Right. Well, as I said, we've diversified and China has become a less important source of goods for us. We do source from Canada and Mexico. From a -- look, we're -- our job is to optimize cost and optimize retails. And by optimize, I mean, on the cost side, that's pretty obvious, sharpest cost possible. On the retail side, we are a market participant, right? And so we do reflect market dynamics. However, part of our competitive advantage has always been to maintain the sharpest value for the entire project. We're not always the lowest on every single item. We're usually -- we're always the best value, we think, so maybe not the lowest costs, always the highest value. And certainly, as you look across an entire project, we feel we've always had the sharpest position. So in thinking about retail management -- retail price management, look, it's just -- it's an optimization. And we're going to work through that every single day. The important thing in retail, as you all know, is momentum. And so we saw in Q3, a little more momentum than we had seen in the prior 7 quarters. And then that momentum continued through Q4 with our customer, and we reported the first positive comps that we've had in 2 years. But we know why we saw it broadly, although we had not seen yet the recovery in large projects, we saw great vitality in a number of categories. And so that momentum is something we're looking to continue, right? And that's always in our mind when we think about retail price management.

And maybe a little bit around how you think about a portfolio approach, having 35,000 SKUs doing projects provides an opportunity on elastic versus inelastic items, you did when there was a lot of inflation in the sort of mid the post-COVID period, you did pass along price. So to what extent do you think that inflation is coming in the space? And to what extent would you anticipate any gross margin pressure around it?

Those are questions that are too hard to predict, Chris. Obviously, as cost pressures increased in our market you would expect that the market to respond and see retails -- pressured retails, right? But I think we did a fantastic job of managing our margin position throughout that inflationary period, and you shouldn't expect anything different from us.

Excellent. Maybe dovetailing back to your momentum comment since you introduced it. There's been a lot of questions about what's going on with consumer funny weather period. It's flu season, there's been a marked level of uncertainty that's happened since the beginning of February, and even there's some consumer packaged goods companies are like, oh, something sort of changed in the beginning of February. How do you think about the health of the U.S. consumer and the potential for the momentum and the engagement in the category that emerged in the back half of last year to continue?

Right. Well, our customer is unique in that. If you think about our business, we break down roughly 1/2 Pro. So selling to those professional contractors who do work on behalf of homeowners and then consumer. And in that 50% of the business that's consumer, about 80% of those customers are homeowners. And so I think home improvement provides a customer cohort that is uniquely strong, broad and deep. Our addressable market is about 130 million households in the U.S., 40 million more in Canada and Mexico and the homes they occupy. So when you talk about customer health, for us, it's homeowner health. And the homeowner has never been more financially healthy than they are today, Chris. So on -- in the first respect from an employment and income position, the homeowner is fully employed, and they've seen strong income gains over the last 5 years, and those income gains continue. Second, and we think even more importantly, the wealth position of the American homeowner is in a different position than it was in 2019. Since 2019, homes in the United States have increased in value by 50% in aggregate. The home equity in those homes, because mortgages really haven't changed much the home equity position has increased. I think the latest number is 79% since 2019. And so you're talking about the creation of $15 trillion or so in housing wealth in the last 5 years sitting on the balance sheets of the American homeowner. Now what I find interesting, Chris, and so of course, we've read the same press you've read on how the consumer might be thinking heading into the spring, but there are unique dynamics for the homeowner when we talk about what we've seen in large projects -- large project deferrals and the dry powder on the sideline. So maybe I'll just go into that for a second because that's the unique kind of investment thesis for Home Depot, I think, in the short term. External sources calculate this slightly differently, source to source. But most folks will say that we're in a period -- if you look at the last 5 years, we are actually at a $50 billion deficit in cumulative home improvement since 2019. So we were in a cumulative surplus in '21 and '22, obviously, we grew by $47 billion in 3 years. And then we saw that surplus erode as the COVID pull forward kind of worked its way through and then the impact of higher interest rates had what we call -- it created a deferral mindset among many of our homeowner customers. That deferral mindset began to kick in kind of mid-2023. And what do I mean by that? Hey, my mortgage is 3%. Mortgage rates are 7%, I'm not going to move. HELOC rates are 9% and so I'm not going to borrow against my house. Why was the customer saying that? Because they, like all of us reading in the paper every day, rate cuts are right around the corner, right? This is back 2023. Come to present day, we have a $50 billion cumulative deficit in home improvement spending over the last 5 years. So our customers tell us, yes, we've been putting off projects now for years that we intend to do. But we have the wealth, we have the power to execute these projects. And if you just click into the means of doing projects. If you look at cash-out refinances, for instance, that value was about $6 trillion in 2019. And so this is -- sorry, tappable, apologies -- tappable equity in the U.S. equity base was about $6 trillion. That means that equity that you could actually borrow against. That $6 trillion is now $11 trillion. Pre-COVID, American homeowners are pulling equity out right around about 2% of that tappable equity mark every single year. They're pulling out something like 0.5% now. So you have a doubling in the tappable equity and you have withdrawals at about 25% where they had been pre-COVID. And so these are all very big numbers. But just roundly speaking, huge deficit now in the condition of homes and incredible amount of deferral and project and then dry powder on the sidelines, like we've never seen it before. What's interesting about that dry powder is we're now shifting our customers tell us from a mindset of, hey, I'm waiting because rates are definitely going to drop to more of a conventional understanding that we're likely in a new normal of interest rates. They're not likely to move in the long -- at least this is what the consumer and the homeowner is saying. So I'm going to begin thinking again about moving and about restarting projects. Towards the latter half of last year, we began to see some of this. We began to see turnover tick up a little bit, home sales tick up a little bit, and we began to see HELOC withdrawals tick up a little bit, and they have steadily climbed as HELOC rates, which are based on short-term rates have decreased by about 60 basis points in the last year. So that's a long answer, Chris, but there are unique forces that underpin the demand for and the ability to pay for home improvement projects. And so our job is to run the best business we can run and to continue to invest to take as much of that demand as we possibly can.

That's great. Dovetailing off that, can you talk a little bit about replacement cycles and what you're seeing from some of those early COVID winning categories, whether it's paint, whether it's some big ticket outdoor type categories, do you think some of that emergent momentum is, in fact, just structural because things are breaking and walls need to be painted?

Well, so the COVID pull forward to the extent there was a pull forward. We saw it most clearly in outdoor categories, 2021 was the year of the backyard, right? We were all in our backyard. And so grills and patio sets, everybody bought a couple of patio sets, everybody bought a grill. And so we certainly saw a pivot in classes like those, '23, '24 even. We believe we are through all of the COVID pull forward. So looking across the business, there is no more COVID pull forward to work through. We think we're back in natural replacement cycles. Our appliance business has been actually quite strong through 2024. Absolutely. And we saw fantastic engagement with appliances through the holiday season. The beauty of home improvement is you're never done. I mean just think about your own home, you are never done. And so replacement cycles tend to offset each other, right? And so there's never -- I can't think of really a super cycle ever in home improvement. I think we just -- we see a consistent demand even now for smaller projects. Our professional customers tell us they still have healthy backlogs, healthier than on historical average. I think the remodeling index where 50 is -- conditions are kind of average. We're still at a 59 score. That score had been in the 70s during COVID, but a lot of optimism with our Pros. And so replacement cycle, project cycle, I think we're back to normal. You mentioned paint though, paint has been a real strength for us. And there are a few things about paint. Number one, it's typically the gateway project. Anybody can do it. The ticket is a little lower, the complexity is low. And so we saw a strong 2024 capped off by an exclusive deal that we just announced with KILZ. And I don't know how many of you know what KILZ is. But if you ask your painter, what do you put on a wall before you put paint on it. More people are going to say KILZ than they say primer. This is the Kleenex of primer. It is now exclusive to The Home Depot. And so number one, that's just another sign that our paint category and our team in paint is leading the industry and our vendors see that. But second, you should take that as a proof point where our vendor understands the power of The Home Depot and understands that regardless of the fact that they could sell in multiple outlets, the Home Depot is the place where brands excel. And so we couldn't be happier about that deal, our painters couldn't be happier, and I think that's going to have an impact this year.

Excellent. So maybe we think about The Home Depot long-term growth strategy. It's changed a lot, I think, in the past 10 years. Could you maybe narrate that? My impression was if we went back to Frank post-GFC, it's the 3-legged stool, it's e-commerce, it's driving productivity of the existing box. It seems like in the past 5 years, you've created an effort to expand the TAM. Can you talk about that transition and how you're thinking about market share?

I will. And I'm going to revise your remarks there a little bit, Chris, if I may. So I think that the great thing about our strategy is actually I don't think it's any different than it was 20 years ago. There are new dynamics that emerge that we respond to, most principally e-commerce, but the professional contractor strategy is as old as The Home Depot. When I joined The Home Depot 20 years ago, literally my first day, I opened a drawer and there's a floppy disk and on it, it says own the out-of-the-box pro, meaning like how do we attack the professional contractor who needs job site delivery and while they're interacting with our stores, they need a lot more than that. So this strategy is perennial at The Home Depot. But I will give you a little bit of history. So we come out of the GFC, Frank Blake does just a magical job of bringing our culture back and then focusing on rebuilding a great business and driving efficiency in our processes to make -- frankly, to make our associates' lives easier so that they can help our customers, right? And so it was the right thing at the right time. But I will also tell you e-commerce began in earnest in 2008 with Frank. We read an article in the New York Times, I think that said Amazon is gaining share in power tools. And we did a ton of work in the summer of '08 to decide what The Home Depot was going to be online, and we still are leveraging that work today. But I'll fast forward a little bit. So we have a great housing recovery coming out of the GFC, but we know that tailwind is going to last forever. So in 2015, we embarked on this kind of discovery of what are the next engines of growth going to be for The Home Depot. What we talked about in 2015 is largely what we're investing in today. It's the pro, it's interconnected retail, meaning the marriage of our digital assets and the store experience. And those are our 2 principal growth avenues, add the third one, which is the reemergence of new stores, right, which is incredibly exciting for us. But just to talk about the growth strategy for a bit, we are in a $1 trillion addressable market. It's one of the most attractive markets we think, in the consumer economy. We've got about a 17% share. But if you think about the Pro side of that, the Pro is about a little over half of that $1 trillion, we call it $525 billion for the Pro. There's probably about half of that, that while you would -- we have the right to win, but we don't quite have the capabilities to win. So when we talk about the ability to win with the larger Pro, with the more complex order, we're talking about a $250 billion market opportunity where we're in prime position, we're the largest player. And so yes, we don't have the capabilities. And so for the last 5 years, it is fair to say the buildup of the capabilities that have allowed us to begin to compete and win with that complex pro order are really shaping up and beginning to be put in place. I'm happy to talk more about that, Chris.

Yes. I guess the question there is a 2-part question. One is, where do you exit this year from a capabilities perspective? Do we have to base the pyramid in place to grow from? And then on the other side, how does -- I think you're in 17 markets now. How are you thinking about the pace of that expansion and the ultimate goal?

Right. So we are in 17 markets with a number of elements of the experience and I kind of break these down into local and then national elements. You can think of local as being a flatbed distribution center. We have 17 of those. We're building 3 more that will open in 2026. So we'll have 20. You have a flatbed distribution center. You have an outside sales force who is calling on customers and showing up at the job site and facilitating these orders. And then you have -- and obviously, you have the power of the store, which is already there. Then you have kind of the common assets or national, which are more technology oriented. These are an order management system, an account management system, an approach to pricing and trade credit in the form of a house account where we extend short-term credit and hold it on our balance sheet. All of these are beginning to come together. The local assets are there in 17 markets. We think that what we've built already contributed about $1 billion that is in our P&L base today. So over the last few years, we've built up to that kind of $1 billion annual benefit. And look, the point here, Chris, is that this is hard. Truly winning the Pro requires exceptional execution across all those things we're building. So you need to be able to offer trade credit, but you have to be able to allow the Pros to manage their orders the way they're accustomed to. Think about how many order modifications and cancellations and a modification of a delivery date. Order management is quite complex for these complex orders compared to cash and carry retail. It has to exist within our systems. And so that's why it takes a bit. So we're already winning in spite of the fact that we don't really have that order management experience that our Pros are accustomed to. So pace, what we can't afford to do is overpromise and underdeliver to any Pro customer. And that's why we have been very measured about taking on business that we know that we can win. We're experimenting with the right categories to hold in these flatbed distribution centers that allow us to carry much deeper quantities, almost infinite quantities and we can talk more about that, but also a broader set. I think longer length lumber, longer length drywall that can't be held in a store. We're learning what works, and it's working. It's not yet -- we're not at that tipping point, and I don't quite know when we'll get there. But at some point, when we click on all cylinders here, we think we're going to have built something truly disruptive and novel. We just want to do it the right way. We're not going to get ahead of ourselves because if you're a Pro, and we call you and we close an order with you and if we don't deliver on your expectations of service, you're not going to take our call again. And so that's why we're being very careful and measured with it.

Great. So I have about 5 more minutes of prepared questions, and then we'll open it up to the audience for Q&A. So definitely welcome questions. So a follow-up question to that is that business, how is that going to affect the cyclicality of The Home Depot business relative to the core retail box?

Well, the beauty of what our Pro business is comprised of is not exposed to new construction, right? It is repair, maintenance and improvements and larger remodeling, right? And so I think that we are in a cycle right now. I mean you could say that the hesitation by our customers to take on larger projects probably has not been this frozen since the great financial crisis. Housing turnover, I'm not sure could be any lower and so in that respect, it's fantastic. I'm not sure that conditions could get much worse and yet here we are winning every day. You take a category like roofing, for instance, Chris, where we've expanded our exposure to that great market through the acquisition of SRS, which is about 2/3 roofing. Roofing is essentially a noncyclical business, right? You have major proportion going into repair and remodeling. And so a category like that, it's a noncyclical category, and it winds up most of ours are. And I would say that that's larger projects, there is some relationship with significant swings in interest rates. But as I said, as folks adjust to this new normal we expect it's just a matter of time before this begins to heat up again.

So it's a great dovetail to the SRS side. So large Pro versus Trade Pro you've acquired a great asset, a very scalable asset. Could the Trade Pro opportunity be bigger than the large Pro opportunity? And as you think about category expansion in SRS. Like is the environment inhibiting going into a new category? Is it finding the right bolt-on asset onto SRS to build from inhibitor?

Well, so your first question, trade versus large Pro. Look, the beauty of the SRS acquisition allow -- it allows us to sell to both that generalist who is buying across our store and across our assortment and then also that specialist, that roofing specialist. Think about a project, a remodeling project where you have a small roofing requirement to the project. That part of the project might be executed by the GC, maybe subbed out, but that purchase is likely to be executed through our Home Depot outside sales representative and delivered through our flatbed distribution center. If you're talking about a larger remodeling project or a full roof replacement, that's going to come through -- that's going to be subbed out to a roofer, that roof is going to go to SRS. That's where the specialty roofers go. So -- and with SRS we pickup pool, we pick up landscape, we pick up the specialists. The acquisition of SRS did increase our TAM by, we think, about $50 billion as we become more legitimate in those trade categories and not all specialty trades are fully reflected in that $1 trillion market. So we'll learn as we go, and we'll expand our TAM as we move along as well. With respect to new verticals, SRS is an exceptional acquisition vehicle. They've proven over their 15-year history, to have really an unblemished record of, call it, 150 acquisitions. They're methodical and the best managed distribution company we've ever come across. And to your point about quality assets, one thing we know is we're -- we don't need to be in the turnaround game, right? We are not interested in investing in turnarounds. We are interested in acquisitions that accelerate our ability to realize our vision and make us better, right? And that's what SRS did. It made us better. Actually, the trade credit that I talked about is being run by SRS today because they know how to do it, right? So we probably skipped a year of learnings on trade credit, underwriting trade credit processing simply by asking SRS to take on the entirety of The Home Depot Trade Credit portfolio. And by the way, customers who are utilizing Trade Credit, we're seeing truly significant growth rates with those Pros. But back to the point, we will always consider acquisitions when they accelerate our ability to achieve our vision. And we'll create value through SRS in a number of ways. Number one, we just want them to keep growing in their verticals. They significantly outgrew their public company competition in the second half of last year. Second, we want to evaluate new verticals and to allow them to expand into new verticals through either building it or acquiring quality assets. And then third, the cross-selling with The Home Depot has shown some really interesting benefits in early days with SRS.

Fantastic. So any audience questions that we can entertain for Richard? And everyone looking at how great the market is trading this morning. Questions?

You talked a lot about home prices. Maybe it feels like we're in a slightly different world now than we were a few months ago, even from a risk perspective with all these tariffs. Can you maybe just talk about home prices as it relates to demand, any risks you see there, any correlation within your own business? I'm sure you guys look market by market, you see that there are some markets where you still see appreciation, some where there's depreciation. Can you maybe just talk about that and how we can contextualize how that might affect what things look like going forward?

I think contextualized is a good way to put it. I kind of want to keep it at a higher level. Let me answer the lower-level question first. So what do we observe? Right now, I'd say the signals are going to be harder to read because of this deferral of project and so I'd say the predominant force in our homeowner customers' minds has been rates over the last couple of years, not necessarily price. Now let's talk about home prices. First of all, I remember at the beginning of '23, there were many people calling for a home price crash. We knew that wasn't going to happen. In fact, prices increased by 5%. I expect that there will be some variability in home prices market to market, and we've seen that in recent months. But I think the question that you have to ask again, contextually is, okay, you're a homeowner that has been -- let's just say you bought your home in 2019, right? You've seen 50% price appreciation. If you see a correction, let's say you see a 5% correction. You're up 45%. Is that really going to sway your mindset? We actually -- we worked with -- I remember speaking to Robert Shiller of Case-Shiller 15 years ago, and the question of wealth effect in housing. And I think the upshot of it is, obviously, there's not perfect price transparency. And so when you have moderate swings in price, they don't have as much of an impact as when you have significant swings in price. And so I just -- I don't know that, that dynamic is going to be very important for home improvement. I think the bigger dynamic is when we survey our customers, the number of customers who have said they are deferring projects because of higher rates. I mean you're talking about double-digit percentages of respondents saying, I'm holding off on the kitchen project. I'm going to do it. I'm just waiting for rates. And now, again, they're beginning to say, look, this is the new normal. I'm going to get on with my life. I think the buildup of backlog is going to be possibly a more important dynamic in the short term than home prices.

Said another way, a deferral. So that question is if like normally, category grows in line with wage growth. Wage grows 3%, 4%, consumption grows 3% to 4%. How does the share of wallet and deferral impact? How do you think about in an environment that's weaker? Like does normally like, "Oh, I can defer these projects, but now are you -- is it less so in a tough outcome because of the cycle that we just came through?

First of all, I'd say I don't -- there's more than just income. I do think it's home price appreciation. It's -- when you -- if you think about home improvement, I think as investors, you're in a great spot when you're in home improvement because it's the one way that a customer can make an investment that they believe is going to pay off that always has paid off, but also increases their standard of living at the same time. I challenge you to think of any other one like that, right? And so I think there's just a persistence of home improvement demand. Look, the housing stock in the U.S. is worth $50 trillion. This thing is getting older. 10 years ago, 45% of homes were older than 40 years. Now that number is 55% of all homes are older than 40 years. And if you look at that graph, it's just this beautiful glacial increase in the average age of the American home. At the end of the day, it's one of the most fundamental needs in the consumer's mind. And so I would say we know that this buildup of backlog is real. Our customers tell us every single day. And I do expect you're going to see it acted upon.

So I've a follow up. So as you think about -- because I think everyone's in this very dark mindset right now. Maybe can you talk about cost. And I think we'll put the question in terms of upside and downside, saying that you're in the best cost position since 2010, having followed Home Depot since '03 is a very, very, very strong statement, because that flow through from 2010 to 2017 was pretty breathtaking against the comp base. So can you talk about, let's say, you get back to something more of a normalized comp? How you think about flow through and your willingness to pass that through. And then to the extent that we do have an accentuation of the deferral, is there enough levers in the business to protect the margins?

Well, so I do think if you just think about the basics of what you used to see, Chris, and what I would expect you'd see as we laid out in '23 now, we'll have an investor conference coming up this December. But we laid out a base case expectation for The Home Depot to growth 3% to 4%, which is our base case. It doesn't mean we're happy with that. But that's our base level of expectation. Our P&L, our operating expense begins to lever around 3% in our current environment, which is still a little bit inflated, right, from an input cost perspective. And you can think generally a natural rate of leverage is about 10 basis points of leverage per point of comp over that 3%. But we also outlined an accelerated case in our expectations. And so in a base case, look, you'd expect leverage to create mid- to high single-digit EPS growth at that 3% to 4% sales growth. In the accelerated case, we simply say the more we can supercharge sales growth to drive higher EPS growth, the more we're going to continue to reinvest, right? And so there's always the choice of dropping to the bottom line versus reinvesting. I can tell you both productivity and reinvestment are -- there's a lot going on in both of those areas. In fact, for 2025, in our guidance, our guidance reflects in margin a natural rate of deleverage of about 20 basis points, which is that difference between 3% and our 1% guide. Then it reflects SRS mix in the 53rd week. But underneath that, a tremendous amount of productivity that has -- that we are reinvesting in the business. productivity in our supply chain, productivity in our store operations. Those things fuel our ability to invest to win in the future. And so you should always expect that we will continue to reinvest in the business, but we want to earn that in productivity.

And then what about if this deferral accentuates and we have 2 years of negative comps traffic-driven labor model, like at some point, fixed variable costs become more fixed. So if we enter a tougher environment, do you still have that Home Depot flexibility to manage the expense structure?

We will assess the environment as it develops, and we've always proven that we're stewards of the bottom line. We'll do the right thing for the business long term. We'll also reflect the economic environment we feel like we're in. Recall that at the end of '23, we announced we were reducing our fixed costs by $500 million, which we did. And so we do maintain flexibility in our model. I would also say, though, it's our responsibility to run this business as efficiently as possible every single day. We're not waiting for some hypothetical situation to tighten our belts. We keep tight belts every single day. One thing that we do believe in, though, is staffing appropriately. So we look at our associates and their presence and ability to serve customers as the most important asset we have in the company. Those hours do fluctuate with transactions. So they grow transactions, they shrink with transactions. And so there's a natural mitigation, but there's nothing more important than our customer experience as enabled by that associate. And so we're very careful to manage that level of staffing appropriately for our customer.

Any questions? I have another one? And so going back to the price, I think the consumer has really digested a lot of price in a lot of categories, durables prices came back down. But for core everyday needs, think about the consumer food is somewhere between 20 to 40-something percent of the average spend per month. And those prices haven't really come down. And a lot of that -- you can say that about all needs, needs generally don't deflate consumption, those products and our needs. So consumers absorbed a lot of inflation. The consumer has been hyper value-seeking still for the past couple of years. You did manage price very well. You did pass along price in the last cycle. Do you think it's different this time? Does Home Depot have to eat a little bit more this time because of the environment, the potential environment?

Well, I would say, in fact, durable goods has been a deflationary position for more than 1.5 years. We saw our prices both cost and price generally settle mid-2023 and remain very stable through 2024. We do think we are priced sharply compared to the market. It's our job to bring our best value to our customers every single day. We'll keep doing that. And look, we'll respond to the environment as we see it unfold. We certainly did see sensitivity in '23 and '24. When you have ticket -- when you have negative ticket and a negative transaction, you simply have to do what is necessary to drive momentum in the business, which is why I think in our market, you saw stability in price. But Chris, I think the best way to put this is, you should bet on The Home Depot every single day to optimize cost and price sharply or better than anyone else on the consumer economy.

Great. Any other questions? Fantastic. Richard, we really appreciate your time.

Great to be here. Thanks, everybody.