An ergonomic handle and patent pending "pocket grip" on the underside sets Home Depot's new BigGripper bucket apart on the shelf, but more importantly, the design is a showpiece for a new approach to big box merchandising. Photo: Herbst Produkt Brick-and-mortar retailers have learned a lesson from Apple and are following their vertically integrated approach by developing high-quality, and exclusive, products to remain competitive in the age of Amazon. Photo: Herbst Produkt The clever container was developed in textbook fashion by Herbst Produkt, an award-winning firm with a client list that includes Clorox and Facebook. Photo: Herbst Produkt Like a good user-centered designer, founder Scot Herbst started the project by observing customers in their natural habitats and recording their difficulties using similar products. Photo: Herbst Produkt "We found this particularly true in the female demographic -- someone would load a garden bucket with soil and have a hell of a time lifting and maneuvering the ungainly mass," says Herbst.

Photo: Herbst Produkt With this insight in hand, Herbst rearranged the elements of the bucket to create an asymmetrical, yet better balanced product. "The best part about these little innovations is they didn't add any cost to the product," says Herbst. Photo: Herbst Produkt The Big Gripper bucket is part of the retailer's "Made in America" initiative, which is attempting to "reshore" manufacturing jobs, and is being produced by a family-run company outside of Boston. Photo: Herbst Produkt

Home Depot's new Big Gripper all-purpose bucket is a handy improvement on the old school, five-gallon contractor pail. An ergonomic handle and patent pending "pocket grip" on the underside sets the product apart on the shelf, but more importantly, the design is a showpiece for a new approach to big box merchandising. Brick-and-mortar retailers have learned a lesson from Apple and are following their vertically integrated approach by developing high-quality, and exclusive, products to remain competitive in the age of Amazon. And they're learning from another Apple trademark: revisiting product categories filled with bad offerings, and completely rethinking them.

The clever container was developed in textbook fashion by Herbst Produkt, an award-winning firm with a client list that includes Clorox and Facebook. Like a good user-centered designer, founder Scot Herbst started the project by observing customers in their natural habitats and recording their difficulties using similar products. "We found this particularly true in the female demographic – someone would load a garden bucket with soil and have a hell of a time lifting and maneuvering the ungainly mass," says Herbst.

With this insight in hand, Herbst rearranged the elements of the bucket to create an asymmetrical, yet better balanced product. "The best part about these little innovations is they didn't add any cost to the product," he says. "They're cost-neutral features that are achieved without adding material or complex tooling." You can't argue with free, but the importance of this design rests less in its features and more why it was developed in the first place.

>Products like the bucket sell by the millions, but haven't been improved in decades.

It might be hard to believe, but when the Home Depot was founded in 1978, it was hugely innovative. Floor to ceiling stacks of oriented strand board might lack the panache of 3-D printing, yet both developments had similar effects. Prior to the arrival of these walk-in warehouses, weekend warriors were left with whatever limited selection their local hardware store carried. For two decades, Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus made it his mission to make exotic tools and hard-to-find building materials available to anyone with a pick-up truck.

In 2000, Marcus retired and brought on Bob Nardelli as CEO. Nardelli had been one of Jack Welch's hatchet men at GE, and he spent the next seven years driving down costs—at the expense of Home Depot's reputation for innovation. "From what I understand, it had a brutal cost-cutting culture that stymied product innovation," says Herbst.

At the same time, Amazon and other online tool sellers were beating physical retailers at the price game. Shipping bags of concrete was cost prohibitive, but online sales of hyper-profitable, high-ticket power tools boomed. "If the game is played solely on a price-cutting platform, you will inevitably run out of margin to support new innovation," says Herbst. "What the consumer doesn't appreciate is that innovation costs money—R&D, prototyping, design, engineering, IP—all of these activities require an investment."

Marcus forced Nardelli out in 2007 and brought in a Home Depot veteran to right the ship by returning the focus to developing and selling innovative products, exclusive to Home Depot. The mandate came with a cool code name – Project: Whitespace – and Herbst Produkt jumped at the chance to redesign humble products like the bucket that sell by the millions, but haven't been improved on since their introduction decades ago.

Home Depot is also taking a page from values-driven companies like Patagonia and emphasizing how their products are made in addition to how they function. The Big Gripper bucket is part of the retailer's "Made in America" initiative, which is attempting to "reshore" manufacturing jobs, and is being produced by a family-run company outside of Boston. "Any cost premiums are balanced out by the fast lead-time to market and incredibly, ridiculously, high volumes that Home Depot can support," says Herbst.

The Big Gripper is available at Home Depot's website and stores across the country.