Anyone seen this sight in your local Home Depot yet? A friend of mine, Fabian who is an integrator in
Atlanta, GA captured these shots in his local Home Depot.
It's certainly interesting to see Home Depot partner with Control4 and HAI in this effort. Now that they've started it, I wish them all the best. But I can't help but remember the day 6 years ago when I first saw "Nabu" home automation products show up on the shelves of my local CompUSA store. I'll freely admit that I was naive enough to be worryed when that happened. Ok, it's not something that I'm proud of, but I really was nervous at the time. I wondered what CompUSA's entrance into the marketplace meant for the health of my small business. Well I had a lot to learn back then, and I'm certain I still have a lot to learn. But the lesson I learned from the Nabu experience is that "shelf space doesn't assure mind share". The sale of Nabu products at CompUSA did not go well. I've attempted (unsuccesfully) in subsequent years to find out the real numbers, but suffice it to say that sales were less than stellar. Of course hindsight is always 20/20 and now we are tempted to say, "well DAH" of course it didn't work.
But many things have changed in the market place since then and now we are talking Home Depot, not CompUSA. So for those of you who may be very concerned about Home Depot's move let me remind you, "shelf space does not assure mind share".
In our growing market of home technologies there are lots of opportunites. Some of us an integrators may still be naive enough to think that we can accomodate all the opportunities. I'm quite certain that is not a likely reality. As our market grows we will see an ever widening variety of customer types. A certain (and growing) percentage of them will be retail customers.
If you currently run a retail business this is good news.
If you currently do NOT run a retail business this is still good news. Because most of these customers ( at least for now) are NOT your customers. Most of them don't have the propensity to pay for SERVICE related activities which I suspect makes up the lion share of your revenue. So what this retail model does for you and for the rest of the industry is provide FREE ADVERTISING. It's an "awareness campaign" that none of us could dream of financing.
"But", you say, "what about those customers who really do want to pay someone to design, install, configure, and service their home automation solutions?" Yea, I know, if they innocently go to Home Depot and buy all the boxes, then go home to install it and get frustrated with the experience this will turn into a negative awareness campaign for our industry. I agree!
And apparently so does Control4 and HAI. They have provided an "in-store kiosk" for customers to look up a local integrator to help with the installation. 
I was really intrigued when I found this out. I think this has the potential of being an awesome solution. It allows the DIY customer to buy the boxes that he/she wants to do the project themselves if they are so inclined, but also offers our future customers (the ones who value our services) to find us.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I still have a lot to learn so I guess time will tell if this is really a good solution. But for now I say "Bravo" to Control4 and HAI for working on a creative option that helps grow the market place and simultaneously supports their core integrator service providers through lead- generation and marketing.
Thanks Fabian for sending the photos!!


