“they Learned From Walmart”: Home Depot Won’t Raise Prices Due To Tariffs, Leadership Says

Home Depot says it won’t be passing new tariff costs onto customers.

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, the company’s Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said the home improvement chain plans to keep its prices steady, despite rising costs tied to U.S. trade policy. 

"Because of our scale, the great partnerships we have with our suppliers, and productivity that we continue to drive in our business, we intend to generally maintain our current pricing levels across our portfolio,” CNBC quoted McPhail as saying. 

That stance sets Home Depot apart from major retailers like Target and Walmart, both of which have signaled that customers can expect higher prices due to tariffs.

The update came alongside the release of Home Depot’s fiscal Q1 earnings. 

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.56, just below the $3.60 that analysts were expecting. Still, revenue came in higher than projected: $39.86 billion vs. $39.31 billion expected.

Online, not everyone is buying it

While Home Depot may be trying to calm concerns, Redditors on a r/stockmarket post weren’t convinced.

“Which means all rising prices will be blamed on inflation and not Trump’s tariffs,” one person wrote.

Another said their experience doesn’t match the company’s claims. 

“I shop at HD quite a lot and it seems like their prices have gone up quite a lot in the last 3–4 months, especially on lumber,” they wrote.

Others speculated that the cost of tariffs might still show up somewhere else.

“They could do a lot of layoffs in the stores, but as you know, that affects the customer experience and service,” one commenter noted. “They could start chopping employee benefits but that'll only lead to people leaving Home Depot to go work in all those big beautiful factories fresh from China that'll be opening up all across the USA.”

And some felt the company was just sidestepping the PR mess.

“They’re going to silently raise them while claiming they’re not,” someone wrote. “They learned from Walmart it’s bad PR to say they’ll raise prices.”

Customer reports prices have already risen

A Home Depot shopper raised alarms in early May over the retailer's rising prices. He says he caught employees raising the prices on DeWalt tools, a move he says is a result of the tariffs.

While the tariffs will impact many of the key materials in DeWalt goods, as they come from China, it's unclear how this will impact the prices of the brand's tools and Home Depot goods overall.

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