The data breach at Home Depot (NYSE:HD) may be one of the biggest seen in retail history however, it may not greatly affect its customer pool amounting to millions.

The home improvement retailer confirmed this Monday that stolen credit and debit card numbers went as far as April thus affecting over 2,200 Canadian and U.S. stores.

The retailer is a part of a huge list of other retailers that had breaches in security with stolen data. The most prominent and high profile of the hacks was the one at Target (NYSE:TGT) which faced a drop in both sales and profits. The customers fled, post the breach consisting of 40 million credit and debit card accounts.

President of Customer Growth Partners, Craig Johnson said that consumers do not pertain the data breach at Home Depot (NYSE:HD) as a big issue. They understand the fact that it isn’t the first time that such a breach has occurred.

Analysts say that it is still too early to estimate what impact the breach will bring to Home Depot (NYSE:HD) because of the unknown details that are still to be uncovered. However, they say that there may be four reasons that the breach may not affect the number of shoppers. The reasons are discussed as follows:

 

Customers

The retail numbers come from various customers, however around 37 percent sales come from contractor and professional services. The retail analyst Greg Melich from International Strategy & Investment Group claims that sales also come from commercial customers.

Analysts comment on the loyalty of the group to the retailer – resulting into them shopping at Home Depot (NYSE:HD) quite a few times per week.

In comparison, Target (NYSE:TGT) caters to middle class customers that shop by looking out for the best prices possible. These customers are less loyal and instead, go after low priced products in other various stores.

Timing

Home Depot (NYSE:HD) benefits from timing not only because post the theft on them, there were many to follow on other retailers. And, also because Target (NYSE:TGT) was the one to disclose its breach one week prior to Christmas which is the busiest season for such retail businesses.

Home Depot (NYSE:HD) didn’t disclose till September which was months after they had already benefitted from the busiest season for home-improvement retail businesses.

Lack of Choices

Customers see Home Depot (NYSE:HD) as a must-go-to outlet to shop from. This is unlike the case of Target (NYSE:TGT); which is why, post the announcement of Target’s (NYSE:TGT) breach, customers had a variety of stores to chose from that inhabited the same type of merchandise at lower prices. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) as well as Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) are a couple of fine examples.

Home Depot (NYSE:HD) however, also benefitted because it happens to have a lesser number of competitors; like Ace Hardware or Lowe’s (NYSE:LOW).
Growing Business

Home Depot (NYSE:HD) had managed to establish a much solid business prior to the breach unlike Target (NYSE:TGT). The former’s revenue for the period ending last month increased 4.4 percent. Its profit soared 13.5 percent as the company increased annual profit prediction.

Get Free Updates and Stock Alerts!

*We only send one email per week