217;s portion of North Wilkesboro Hardware, and the name was changed to Lowe’s Hardware. Today Lowe’s is one of the largest home improvement retailers in the world. Lowe’s home improvement warehouses are located in forty-two out of the fifty States. In February 2001, Lowe’s was operating 633 stores nationwide. With projections in fiscal year 2001 to add an additional 120 stores and relocate of 12 old small format stores, Lowe’s should have 753 stores in operation nation wide at the end of 2001. (Annual Repot 2000) Lowe’s new superstores are currently the largest in the home improvement marketplace, averaging a retail space of about 150,000 square feet. With a typical store prototype averaging a sales floor of 121,000 square feet and an additional 30,000 square foot lawn and garden center attached to the sales floor. On the inside of a Lowe’s home improvement warehouse store you will find the sales floor broken up in to sections that are called centers. Each warehouse generally contains an air conditioning center, heating center, plumbing center, electrical supply center, a building materials supply center, interior design and home fashions center, lawn and garden center, and a appliance center. As you can see Lowe’s is actually a broad spectrum of stores rolled up into one all encompassing warehouse for convenience.A typical Lowe’s home improvement warehouse generally stocks more than 40,000 items plus an additional 400,000 home improvement items available through a special order program. To maximum extent possible Lowe’s purchasing agents from Lowe’s Global Sourcing Division try to purchase foreign products directly from the source to cut down on cost by eliminating the cost of going to third-party importers. This savings is passed directly to the customer. Less than 4% of the items that are stocked at Lowe’s come from a single source, LoweR...
