[crazygringo]

That's because you're calculating the percentage wrong.

The relevant percentage isn't against sales but against profits. Home Depot has a profit margin of around 10%, so it would be $719,548 against $100M in profit, or 0.7%.

If you can increase profits by nearly a full percentage point that's huge. That's how companies grow, after all -- a percent here, a percent there, and all these little things are what make the stock price grow.

Sure it's a "lot of work". That's what companies do. If it were easy we'd all be billionaires.