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J.D. Power is perhaps best known for its studies and ratings concerning automakers and related products, but the global consumer insights and data analytics company is also active in other sectors of the economy. This includes insurance, healthcare, and finance, as well as the home improvement industry and the major retailers that are part of it. Using five distinct drivers of customer satisfaction, J.D. Power has compiled a ranked list of which major home improvement retailers leave customers with the best experience — and neither Home Depot nor Harbor Freight sit at the top.

The results were published after an extensive study fielded from July 2024 through March 2025, in which over 2,140 customers were surveyed. All of these customers had bought home improvement-related products within the previous 12 months from one of several major home improvement retailers. Based on this data, J.D. Power gave each business an overall score and the retailer with the highest score this year is Lowe’s Home Improvement. While close competitor Home Depot offers better warranties than Lowe’s, customer satisfaction is still generally higher with the latter.

One reason this is the case is that, generally, Lowe’s offers more affordable power tools than Home Depot. Price is one of the five key “drivers of satisfaction” used in the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Home Improvement Retailer Satisfaction Study. The other four, in no particular order, are online experience, in-store experience, merchandise, and staff and service. Based on consumer input concerning these metrics, Lowe’s outperformed all other retailers. Ace Hardware claims the second spot, with both businesses having higher scores than the overall average of all tested retailers. Menards and Home Depot, on the other hand, have ratings a little below this average.

While Lowe’s and Ace Hardware best everybody else in J.D. Power’s Home Improvement Retailer Satisfaction rankings, that doesn’t necessarily reflect poorly on the competition. According to the analytics company, 64% — nearly two-thirds — of shoppers reported that they would “definitely” shop at their store again. That’s a 9% increase from 2024 — revealing that home improvement retailers in general are doing very well when it comes to customer satisfaction.

According to J.D. Power, this upward trend is mainly due to two factors. One is that employees of home improvement stores are being more proactive in their jobs, making more of an effort to keep stores clean and to greet customers as they come in as well as assist them as they shop. The second reason is that customers are doing more research online before coming into a physical location to shop in person, perusing and comparing products on retailer websites. These sites have become easier to navigate and closer to online-only retailers like Amazon.

Customers are likely also using third-party resources when deciding which home improvement tools to purchase, such as SlashGear’s buyers’ guide for Lowe’s tools every DIY enthusiast should have. Together, customers and employees stepping up their game have made the overall shopping experience better when it comes to home improvement stores. As Michael Taylor, the senior managing director of J.D. Power’s retail intelligence practice, puts it: “Customers are coming into stores with greater knowledge of what they want. If store employees can make helpful suggestions, it increases the likelihood that customers will return to that store.”