Home Services at The Home Depot

Only one home improvement giant is a member of the exclusive club of Dividend Aristocrats, meaning it has boosted its payout for at least 25 consecutive years. But Lowe's (NYSE:LOW) -- not Home Depot -- is that retailer.Home Depot has added a grand total of one new store in the U.S. market since 2013, while Lowe's expanded its base by 300 locations. Yet thanks to faster same-store sales gains, Home Depot's revenue growth has outpaced Lowe's over the past five years. In 2011, the company tiptoed into the e-commerce segment by adding functionality for customers to buy products online and pick them up at stores. Today, nearly half of its online orders involve trips to a Home Depot location, and that sales channel is worth 6% of sales, compared to 4% for both Costco and Target. Home Depot has been pouring resources into its e-commerce infrastructure, with the latest addition being national capability for direct delivery from stores rather than fulfillment centers.Home Depot carries over $20 billion of debt on its books today -- up from just $9 billion in 2011. Despite surging profits over this period, management has opted to take advantage of low interest rates through the years, mainly to fund an aggressive stock repurchase program that's pushed its outstanding share count down by more than a third since 2007. Home Depot is one of the most efficient businesses on the market, boasting returns on invested capital of 31% last year, up from 28% in the prior year. That's good enough to put the retailer in second place among the 30 members of the Dow ranked by ROIC.