Dive Brief:
- The Home Depot has rolled out real-time delivery tracking for big and bulky products across all categories to boost reliability and communication for customers, EVP of Merchandising Billy Bastek said on a Feb. 24 earnings call.
- Home Depot drivers have recently begun using a handheld delivery device to help track order progress and stay up to date on customers' needs, which enabled the retailer to launch the live big and bulky tracking feature, according to Jordan Broggi, EVP of customer experience and president of online.
- "This enhancement gives our customers greater visibility and certainty on the timing of their delivery," Bastek said. "We know that as we remove friction from the experience, we see incremental customer engagement, leading to greater sales across all points of interaction."
Dive Insight:
Home Depot customers have become accustomed to live order tracking on smaller items, but expanding the feature to larger products like appliances destined for homes or lumber shipped to job sites has "been a really big win," according to Broggi.
Stronger tracking capabilities could provide Home Depot an edge among big and bulky shippers in terms of the end-customer experience. Forty-one percent of consumers want to know exactly where their large item order is in real-time, while 50% want a general idea, according to a 2022 survey from delivery software provider DispatchTrack.
Driver-based tools are among the many pathways companies can take to increase delivery visibility, according to a 2025 post from Bungii, a big and bulky delivery provider. For example, driver delivery applications can leave "digital breadcrumbs" and create time-stamped checkpoints as they progress through key stages of the process, the post said.
The tracking feature marks another supply chain upgrade for Home Depot, which is pushing to accelerate delivery speeds and expand the number of products available for fast shipping. To aid in the effort, the retailer has added nearly 200 facilities over the past eight years and leaned on its "ship from best location" algorithm to determine the best delivery approach, executives said in an investor and analyst conference last year.
