Home Depot Launches Online Kitchen & Bath Design Center
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This state-of-the-art design tool, which can be found at homedepot.com/designcenter, enables customers to experiment with 9,500 branded products in millions of combinations, allowing them to dream, design and visualize their new kitchen or bathroom online, create a shopping list and purchase products in-store.

"Our kitchen & bath design center helps customers through one of the most challenging and time consuming phases of remodeling: visualizing how specific products look together before purchasing," said Chuck Elias, Vice President of eBusiness for Home Depot. "When a customer comes into the store with ideas already identified -- and actual products they prefer -- our experts are able to help them plan more efficiently and effectively."

According to Jupiter Media Metrix, one of the leading providers of Internet and new technology analysis and measurement, home improvement retailers have the highest potential of any retailer to benefit from in-store sales based on online research. The research states that online tools help customers find products and help the stores to operate more effectively by having the customer come in pre-educated about products.

Home Depot's Online Kitchen & Bath Design Center enables customers to select from more than 75 kitchens and bathrooms in different styles, ranging from country to eclectic. Within each room, the customer can point-and-click to customize thousands of cabinets, countertops, flooring, wallpaper, fixtures, paint, appliances and other options. The customer can then print a summary with visuals of each product and take it to a Home Depot store to work with a kitchen and bath sales associate.

"Home Depot's Kitchen & Bath Design Center will revolutionize the customer experience of remodeling their homes," said Douglas Mack, CEO of Scene7, which is based in San Rafel, Calif. "Never before have people been able to visualize and experiment with ready-to-purchase home improvement items at home in such an easy and personalized environment."

The design center represents an entirely new way for vendors to market their products. These vendors include Kohler, Kraftmaid, American Standard, DuPont Corian, Armstrong and more. Customers can change out and view products together in a way that could never be done before.

Scene7's proprietary Infinite Imaging(TM) technology lets customers instantly change out elements of an image -- including color, material, pattern, trim, texture and surface. This one-of-a-kind technology enables customers to mix and match an almost endless number of options and see them instantly in an actual room environment. Every option is presented in absolute photo-realism, highlighting colors, reflections, textures, lighting and shadows.

Founded in 1978, The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer and the second largest retailer in the United States, with fiscal 2001 sales of $53.6 billion. The company employs approximately 290,000 associates and has 1,400 stores in 49 states, Puerto Rico, seven Canadian provinces, and Mexico. For the second year in a row, the company was named sixth Most Admired Company in America by Fortune magazine, which also ranked it as America's Most Admired Specialty Retailer for eight consecutive years. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and is included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

Scene7 (www.scene7.com ) provides the leading dynamic imaging platform. The company's Infinite Imaging(TM) platform enables companies to cost- effectively create, manage, and serve dynamically enhanced images, helping to drive sales while saving costs associated with digital imaging. Scene7 clients can easily computer generate any digital image they need -- in absolute photo quality -- for uses including websites, catalogs, partner extranets and marketing collateral. The technologies in the platform include Infinite Imaging software, 3D Imaging, Image Serving, Image Rendering, Planning and the Image Production System. Scene7 has entered relationships with major international and Fortune 1000 brands including Levi Strauss & Co., Victoria's Secret, HGTV, Scripps Networks, Waverly, Mannington and Sanyo. Scene7 is based in San Rafael, California.

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