Why aren’t my products showing (or selling) on homedepot.com?
If a product you set up isn’t showing on homedepot.com, one of three things stopped it: the item never finished setup in IDM (it is still in a review workflow or sitting in Error), Home Depot took it down over a data, image, cost or price problem, or your inventory feed said there was nothing to sell. Home Depot’s IDM guide tells suppliers to check for items in Error daily. If the item is live but not selling, the problem is the page: thin content, weak images, no reviews.
How to find out why an item isn’t showing
Work through these in order. Most items fail at one of the first five, and each step names the screen to check.
- 1
Look for it the way a shopper would
Search homedepot.com in a private browser window by product name and by model number, and try more than one ZIP code. Note whether the page is missing entirely, shows without a buy button, or shows as unavailable — each points to a different cause.
- 2
Read the item’s status in IDM — not just whether it exists
Item Data Management (IDM) is the tool where suppliers set up and maintain product data for homedepot.com, reached through Supplier Hub. An item can exist in IDM and still not be published. Home Depot’s IDM guide lists statuses such as “In Progress – Vendor” (still with you), “SKU Setup Complete” and “Online as Store Browse”, and lets you export the status of every item. Anything still in a supplier workflow or in Error is not on the site.
- 3
Clear anything in Error — high-priority items first
Home Depot’s guide says high-priority items should be completed first because they may cause fines or remove your items from homedepot.com, and that suppliers should check IDM daily for items in Error. The most common reason an item fails Home Depot’s content review, by its own count, is a product name that doesn’t follow its naming rules — fix the name before anything else.
- 4
Fill every required attribute
Missing required fields are the most common reason an item never goes live. Compare the item record to the category’s requirements field by field — dimensions, weights, materials, and the package data at each level (each, inner pack, case).
- 5
Check the main image against Home Depot’s spec
Home Depot’s content guide asks for the product alone on a plain white background (#FFFFFF), at least 1,000 × 1,000 pixels, as a JPEG. White products may use a light beige background (#F5F5DC), and some categories have their own style sheet with different rules, so check yours. A primary image with props, a watermark or too few pixels can hold an item back.
- 6
Confirm the inventory Home Depot is receiving
Check what your feed actually sent for that SKU, not what your warehouse holds. Zero or stale quantities hide items or remove the buy button. In our experience, sets and kits go unavailable when a single component runs out — check every component.
- 7
Check cost and price
A cost change that wasn’t submitted with an effective date, or a price that doesn’t match what the merchant expects, can stop an item from selling. Confirm the current cost with your merchant.
- 8
If it’s live but not selling, fix the page itself
Home Depot ranks complete content higher. Its content guide asks for at least four bullet points of 75–250 characters each, marketing copy of at least three complete sentences (up to 1,500 characters), and .mp4 video. Add every recommended attribute, more images (angles, detail, lifestyle), installation or assembly documents, and a title and bullets that answer what a shopper asks before buying. Then work on reviews.
Not showing and not selling are two different problems
Not showing means shoppers can’t find or buy the item at all. That is a status problem: something in the item record, the image, the inventory feed or the cost is keeping it off the site. Fix the cause and the item comes back.
Showing but not selling means the item is live but losing to other listings. That is a content and ranking problem: the page has fewer images, thinner details and fewer reviews than the products around it, so it sits low in search and category pages.
Suppliers often treat the second problem as the first. Check status first — it’s faster to fix and the loss is total while it lasts.
Sales going down? Find out whether it’s your items or the market
A drop in Home Depot online sales is usually one of three things. First, items that quietly went down — check status across the whole catalog before anything else, because it is the only cause where the loss per item is total. Second, pages that lost ground — compare your images, attributes, reviews and price against the top sellers in your category. Third, the market itself: Home Depot’s results move with housing and big-ticket demand, and that shows up in your numbers too.
Rule out the first two before you accept the third. In the catalogs we audit, a “market” slowdown often turns out to be a handful of items that stopped showing weeks earlier.
What we see across supplier catalogs
Almost every catalog we audit has items the supplier believes are live and sellable that aren’t. The supplier usually finds out when a buyer asks about weak sales, not when the item goes down.
The causes repeat: attributes that were optional when the item was set up years ago and are required now, primary images that don’t meet the current spec, product names that fail Home Depot’s naming rules, and sets that disappear because one component ran out. None of these are hard to fix one item at a time. The work is finding every affected item across a large catalog, and catching the next one the day it happens.
That is why we check every item’s status every day for the suppliers we manage, and why the free retailer scorecard starts with a full list of what is and isn’t live.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my item show in IDM but not on homedepot.com?
Being in IDM means the item record exists; it doesn’t mean it has been published. Home Depot’s IDM guide says a new item is not available for SKU setup until it has passed Home Depot’s internal review, and an item in a supplier workflow or in Error stays off the site. Read the item’s status, then work through the steps above.
What are the item statuses in IDM?
Home Depot’s IDM guide names statuses including “In Progress – Vendor” (the item is still with you), “SKU Setup Complete” and “Online as Store Browse”, and shows items in Error separately. IDM can export the status of every item, which is the fastest way to find everything that isn’t live.
Will Home Depot tell me when one of my items stops showing?
Don’t count on it. Home Depot’s own IDM guide puts the check on the supplier — it says to look for items in Error daily, and warns that unresolved high-priority items may bring fines or removal from homedepot.com. In our experience suppliers usually find out from falling sales or from a buyer. If you have more than a few dozen SKUs, a daily status check across the whole catalog is the only reliable way to catch items the day they go down.
Why does my product show for one ZIP code but not another?
What a shopper sees can depend on their location and the delivery or pickup options available to them. Before assuming the item is broken, search from a few ZIP codes; if it is missing everywhere, it is a status problem, and if it is missing only in some places, look at where the item ships from and how it is set up for delivery.
Why are my Home Depot online sales going down?
Check live status first: a drop is often a handful of items that quietly stopped showing. If everything is live, compare your pages with the top sellers in the category — images, video, attributes, reviews, price — and check that inventory and lead times haven’t changed. Only then put it down to the market. See how to fix suppressed items.
Can someone check my whole Home Depot catalog for me?
Yes. Our free retailer scorecard shows which of your items are not live or sellable and why. If you want the fixes done for you, Grow eCommerce runs Home Depot accounts as a managed service — see how we manage Home Depot.
Find out which of your items aren’t live
We’ll check your Home Depot catalog item by item and show you what isn’t live or sellable, and why — free.
Sources
- The Home Depot Supplier Hub
- The Home Depot — Onboarding New Items in IDM (April 2021, PDF): item statuses, the Error list, daily checks, review process
- The Home Depot — Perfect SKU / Content Enrichment Best Practices (PDF): images, bullets, marketing copy, video
Retailer rules change often; we re-check these pages on every review.