Home Depot entered New England long before Lowe's but Lowe's is catching up and has opened many stores in recent years. The company entered Maine with the opening of two stores: Brunswick (on site of a former Ames) and Auburn near Walmart. Another store opened its doors in Windham and one more in Portland (former Ames on Brighton avenue). Lowe’s has grown to thirteen stores in NH and many are located in towns already served by a Home Depot. New stores opened in Bangor, and Augusta ME as well as Greenland NH. New stores could soon open in Gorham NH and Oxford ME. In October 2011, Lowe's announced it would abruptly close 20 stores including 5 in Maine and NH. The Biddeford store has been redeveloped into Maine's first Market Basket supermarket.

OVERVIEW:

The Lowe's story began in North Carolina more than 60 years ago when H. Carl Buchan, part owner of the North Wilkesboro Hardware Company, envisioned creating a chain of hardware stores. At the time, Lowe’s was a typical, small town hardware store.

Carl Buchan later bought-out his brother-in-law and partner, James Lowe, and foreseeing the post-World War II building boom, concentrated on selling only hardware, appliances and hard-to-find building materials. By eliminating wholesalers and dealing directly with manufacturers, Lowe's established a lasting reputation for low prices. Sales grew over time and additional Lowe’s stores opened in neighboring towns throughout western North Carolina.

Lowe’s stores then reported serving a new type of customer: do-it-yourself homeowners seeking to improve the value of their properties. Anticipating their needs while still accommodating contractors, Lowe’s began to enlarge its stores and expanded its merchandise offerings. Lowe's prototype store today is 116,000 retail selling square feet -- compared with the typical 11,000-square-foot Lowe's stores of the 1980's. Lowe’s stores stock 40,000 products.

LOWE'S CANADA OVERVIEW:

Since 2007, Lowe's also operates stores in Canada. The company slowly expanded in the country for some time. Then in 2012, it attempted to buy Canadian chain RONA but that deal did not go through. In 2016 acquired RONA at a price of CDN 3.2$ billion. In 2022, Lowe's announed its plan to sell its Canadian business to a U.S. based private equity firm.