Last week I read an article in WSJ saying that Home Depot was down in the stock market and that the company was problem shooting. They told the public that they are going to focus on customer service and revamping some of their stores.
Yesterday went to Lowes with Lars. We COULDN’T find a person to help us out. They were all in “hiding” as usual. The went across the street to HD. Now this HD I have had problems with in the past getting some help. WELL you wouldn’t believe the attitude in there. People were SMILING!!!!!!!!!!! They were handing out balloons to our kids. They were saying “Is someone helping you?” “Can we help” , “Are you finding everything” etc. WOW!!!! AND some of them actually acted like they knew what they were talking about. BLEW me out of the water.
Have any of you been to your local HD lately? If so, have you noticed anything like I have? Just wondering.
Tamara
Replies
Mom
Nope, not at all. Can't find a single person to ever help me in the plumbing department. Even when they call for help no one shows up. I can't believe I can't get a plumber on my jobs or at HD. Wuts up wit dat?
Now go to the local lumber yard and theyre arrogent and unhelpful. They let the only good guy they had leave because they didnt wanna give the guy a raise.
Be a plumber
Namaste
andy
"As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is."
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Edited 3/5/2003 8:13:02 AM ET by Andy Clifford(Andybuildz)
I don't know about service 'cause I don't expect any at either but think beLowes is blowing it big time. I still marvel at their 2 buck increase for 7/16" osb when you can still go down the street to the Homepooper and pick it up for $5.25 as opposed to $7.29.
They need to broaden their buying base or are locked in contractually which only makes me wonder about other pricing in their stores.
I hate shopping at the big boxes. Their only redeeming values are convenience and return policy. Otherwise I'd leave them to the homowners they so willingly spend resources on while ignoring me.
What grates on my nerves: some housewife in a volvo knows nothing and eats up all of the only guy in a department's time, I get impatient after 5-10 minutes and finish what I need. In line she (or he) takes too much time because they're sunday shopping and spend sixty bucks. I spent fifteen thousand dollars there (lowe's) last year; I am as valuable as 250 of these pukes and I get no extra consideration. My other grating is never-ever any help loading. I can walk out alone with 20 sheets of drywall and they will happily watch me struggle loading 4x8 sheets in the wind into my truck.
SO, shop at wholesalers. There are plumbing wholesalers, lumber wholesalers, etc. You can avoid the big boxes. But I buy items I don't stock from the big boxes for their return policy. You have to have a relationship, account, or some angle to get decent prices from wholesalers. They tend to be indifferent to walk-in customers and spiteful to the homowners asking dumb questions I dislike so much at the big boxes.
Quality seems to vary by department at the big boxes. My local Lowe's, the plumbing dept mgr is an idiot. All the people in his dep't are incompetent. I've noticed common products unstocked for 4 weeks, such as 6" duct elbows. The millwork guys are really good and know most questions about their products. So it varies. I thought about writing a letter to the store mgr with my thoughts and asking for something better than a no payment - for 60 day - charge card (which I couldn't care less about) in return for my business. Then I returned a ton of s*** and put off that letter.
btw I own HD stock and shop at Lowe's.
remodeler
I'm a homeowner (or "puke", if that's the term you prefer), but I don't like HD any better than you do. Actually I've always had good luck and been treated courteously at real lumber yards and plumbing/electrical wholesalers catering to pros. Plus I'd much rather give my money (even if it's only 60 bucks) to a locally owned company. Plus it's nuts (as you say) to buy 20 sheets of DW and expect to load it yourself. Plus I hate those big parking lots.
I'll agree with you here. Not a big fan of HD. I shop there occassionally. Was thrilled the first time I went there, but get less impressed all the time. I'm less and less inclined to spend lots of money there. The last 1x lumber I got there was absolute garbage, it's definately the last I get there.
I just wish the local yards would attempt to court the DIY'ers more. Closing at 2PM on Saturday, and 5:30 on weekdays just doesn't fit my schedule too well.
The local electrical wholesaler is decent, but they're gone by 5PM and closed weekends, so I've only bought from then twice.
The local plumbing store is great, good hours, except noon on Saturday. Most of the time, they are cheaper on most everything then HD. Excepting maybe faucets. And, the quality of many of the fittings ect. seems to be better at the plumbing store. I won't buy plumbing supplies from HD unless it's a last resort.
I've found on most things, the price is about the same between HD and the yards. Within 10% most times. Though sometimes HD is much cheaper. I prefer the yards stay open, so I buy what I can from them.
Yes. Went to Lowe's and walked the entire length of the store looking for someone to help load a couple of doors on a cart. Not ONE person in a red vest except at the front desk. Seven of them in some confab mostly seeming to hold the front desk down by sitting on it. I walked out.
Next visit to Lowe's, I wanted to park in the contractor loading area as I was picking up a new window and wanted someone to help load it. NO Parking available. Out of seven slots, four were full of compact cars, the other three were taken up with incoming freight. Went to the front desk after parking out front of the store. The THIRD person I asked for help was a supervisor of accounting who finally got what I needed. time wasted; one hour.
Went to HD yesterday, could barely get in the door before two guys asked if they could help me find what I needed. Orange aprons in every aisle actually helping customers. Store was loaded with customers at 3 in the afternoon. Lowe's was a wasteland on last two visits. Wonder Why???
I saw the same article you referred to and wondered if it was just PR. The article said that HD was going to focus or more customer help. Evidently they meant it, at least at the 2 HDs I frequent.
My local lowe's has good contractor parking, and the homowners tend to park down towards their door. So that works out good. The thing that makes me chuckle is the contractor parking has four handicapped spaces right near the overhead door. My brother is blind and one of our best friends has spina bifida / is wheelchair ridden - we modified our home to accomodate wheelchairs - but how stupid is handicapped parking for a business that precludes handicapped people? I shop at a wholesaler for underground water / sewer pipe, and they have a handicapped spot right up front. Those people will NOT be wielding a shovel or operating a trackhoe by definition.
I am very rude to homowners who use the contractor check-out line. **** them. Our local lowe's has a guy who retired from his own cabinet shop to work in their kitchen shop. He's a good resource.
remodeler
I never had a beef with HD until about mid year 2002. This was a new store in 2000, and the first six months or so were great. Lots of help, competent workers, stocked shelves, etc. I spent a good sum of money at HD, when I looked up who's getting my money in Microsoft Works, there is HD near the top of the list, behind my house and car payments.
Well, time went on, and the service continued to decline, to the point where I swore off HD the last time thru. They opened a Lowes about a year ago within 1/2 mile of HD, and silly as it sounds I felt like a HD loyalist, and decided to shop HD. This went on for about 1/2 year, and each time I visited HD the service and selection were worse. I guess the final straw is the rudeness of the help, I can handle the fact that everyone in the store is not an expert, and am forgiving of the newbies that don't know where things are, but being rude to customers has no place in retail. So long HD, hello Lowes I guess.
They are opening up a store here in Lawrence KS. This is about the time the local K-Mart is closing. To be "nice" to the community HD is hiring a lot of the old K-mart people that are loosing thier jobs.
This sounds good in theory, but its certianly doesn't impress upon me HD is trying to stock it stores full of knowledgable people. Rather they found a cheap sorce of desperate labor to hire and do not care if the people they hire will have any idea on to help customers in a hardware store.
I don't know. I see a lot of crossover between Kmart and HD.
Kmart sells a Martha Stewart line of products, HD Ralph Lauren.
Kmart sells shoes, HD sells base shoe.
Kmart sells electronics, HD sell electrical products.
Kmart sells cheap RTA bookcases, HD sells cheap RTA kitchen cabinets.
Kmart sells belts and persues, HD sells tool belts and tool bags.
Kmart sells finger nail polish, HD sells nails.
Kmart sells foundation garments, HD sells supplies for foundations.
Kmart sells toys, HD sells toys.
Kmart sells gold chains, HD sells "silver" chains
Kmart sells watches and clocks, HD employees watch the clock.
Kmart sells shorts, HD sells stuff to fix shorts.
Kmart sells blood pressure gauges, HD customer service gives high blood pressure.
It seems like a perfect match to me.
:) the one you missed is
K-Mart had substandard managment and service and didnt worry about customer satisfaction. It is now trying to save it self from self-implosion
HD HAS substandard managment and service and doesnt worry about customer satisfaction. It WILL try to save it self from self-implosion in the future.View ImageGo Jayhawks
KMart has always amazed me. They had a lock on that buisness here for many years. The main complaint people had was it took forever to check out, and there was never any clerks around to ask questions.
Walmart moved in. Before they opened KMart enlarged their store and added a ton of checkout registers. But, the new registers were always closed, checking out still took forever, and there was never any clerks around.
3-4 years ago, they remodeled again to 'improve' the store. Added even more registers, making the aisles so narrow you can barely get a shopping cart through. Still, the most I've seen is 3 registers open once near Christmas. It's close to work, so I've gone there at lunch time before to grab something real quick. 3-4 times I've gotten to the front to see 4-5 customers waiting at the one open register. I abandon the cart and walk out the door.
Finally decided it was quicker most of the time to drive farther and go to WalMart. KMart is simply too stupid to add a few more employees to provide customer service. They cannot see that that is why Walmart can keep 5-6 checkers busy all day while they only manage 1. Even when you tell them, they still cannot see it. I'm still surprised our local store wasn't one of those that is getting closed. If they are, it's only because they conciously gave their buisiness away.
The only HD around here, has always had decent customer service. Beats the heck out of KMart anyway.
Actually K-Mart is more similar to Hechingers, one of the original Big-Box stores in the Northeast. John Hechinger, in what has got to be perhaps the stupidist business move ever, joined up with the handgun control people and stated publically that no one should be allowed to own a gun. Guess how well that stood with all the guys who pounded nails all week and went hunting on Saturday? That unofficial boycott occurred at about the same time HD was starting to build stores in the Northeast. Hechingers, originally 300 stores, is no more. Now flash forward a few years to the present, where K-Mart hires loud-mouth fat-behind Rosie O'Donnell to be their spokesperson. Rosie doesn't like guns and tells everyone so (except when it comes to trying to get a concealed weapons permit for her adopted son's bodyguard, because he is "more special" than our children). Guess what, the guy who pounds nails all week and goes hunting on the weekend tells his wife to stop shopping at K-Mart. Bing, K-Mart goes under in large part due to the boycott on Rosie. If you wondered why she is no longer their spokesperson (or anyone elses for that matter), now you know.
I'm curious what company is not going to learn this lesson in the future. The only ones who can get away with an anti-gun corporate message are upscale clothing designers, because the guy who pounds nails all week doesn't buy their products in the first place.
FWIW, this wasn't the NRA's doing, this was grass-roots word of mouth mass action made possible in large part by gun enthusiast web sites and usenet gun groups like rec.guns. Don't believe it when someone says the gun lobby doesn't have any power.
Never heard of Hechingers. But do remember the Rosie thing. Never could understand why anyone likes her period. Tried to watch her show once on a day off. She just plain annoys me. Saw her in a movie once where she played the wise adult. Fortunately it was on tv so I could just switch channels, but I'd have walked out of the movie if I'd paid for it. Big, obnoxious, loud-mouthed, know nothing know-it-all (in my opinion). I'd pretty much quit shopping K-Mart before this happened. But her assertion that all gun owners should be thrown in jail sure didn't make me think more of her.
K-Mart has been on the downswing for years due to terrible management. Hiring Rosie was just one in a long string of mistakes. Though it may have been the final straw.
Come to think of it Payless Drug Stores did go out of buisiness soon after eliminating guns and ammo, of course it was the only good part of their store. Did well for many years, within a year or so of eliminating that part of their buisness they were gone.
As far a Home DilXo goes remember my Rotozip...... Now blowes well I went to a guys place in SouthCounty about 30 minutes away and he took me to the one near his house it was nice everything in order packaged nice organized ect then I stopped by the mess that is my local blowes so i think its all on the store management
Darkworks: We support the US military "We kick your #### and take your gas"
Haven't noticed much change in cust service lately; I usually blow them off if they ask if they can help anyway. But I have noticed a marked decline in the quality/selection of their products. I was looking at jigsaws, and they have only DeWalt and Bosch for pro-grade, but they seemed to have half a dozen cheap ones, like Skil, Black and Decker, etc. Seems like they used to also have Porter Cable, Milwaukee, Makita, and all the other big names. They do carry these other brands for other types of tools, but limited scope. For most all tools, they seem to cater more and more to novice DIYs - disposable tools, nothing that'll last long.
Not just tools, have noticed this across departments and product categories.
btw - I consider myself advanced DIY, and I used to wear an orange apron some 6 years ago.If everything seems to be going well, you've obviously overlooked something.
Just where do you think the big box is going to find the 50 or so people that know electrical, plumbing, framing, finish carpenter, landscaping just to name a few trades so they can answer the question that are being asked.
The only thing they [big box] can do is hire any one that wants a job that has has some DIY experiance and train them on the job. You might get lucky and have a trade school close. Some of them will want a job part time. Although I would think most of them would want to work as labore in their field.
I don't know where HD or other big box stores are going to find qualified people to fill thier stores. Frankly I do not think its my problem, it is thiers. If I go to an auto parts store, people there know enough about cars to answer my questions, If I go to a pet store the people there know what I need for my pet, If I go to a tire store the people can tell me the best tires for my car or truck. I go to a grocery store and the people in the meat department, produce etc no about fruits and meats. I could go on but I think you get my drift. If I go to a hardware store I would expect my basic questions to be answered with a little more then ....oh well plumbing fittings are in aisle 5, maybe you can find what you want there.
For HD to say, oh sorry we cant find enough qualified people dont blame us, it utter BS. Thats like when the contractor on my parents home told me. Sorry we cant find enough qualified labor so we have to make do. What that really translates to is...we dont give a rats azz about the customer or customer service we just want to make money.
If HD Lowes etc expect people to shop in thier stores they should make an attempt to either hire those with enough knowledge and skill to answer basic questions, or find a way to train them better.
HD will probably have more then 100 employees on the payroll here, I dont think its to much to ask to have at least one person in each department capable of answering questions at all times....View ImageGo Jayhawks
I've seen some regional differences. In Minneapolis I avoided HD because there never seemed to be enough staff and they were generally surly and unhelpful, though it might have been because they were so understaffed. Here in Reno the stores are less congested, better staffed and the employees are much more helful. When I've asked for directions to an item they will actually take me there and get it for me, which almost never happened in Minneapolis.
Last year I met a former HD manager who spoke frequently about sales targets and how well his store did. I'm really surprised to hear that no accomodation is made for professionals and their larger purchases. Isn't that why costco has its one-hour-early opening for commercial accounts? so they can get in and out before the general public. If I were managing a store like HD I'd be making a special effort to take care of those commercial accounts.
Its a shame - in Minnesota there are still great local hardware stores. The one close to my house was one of the best. Here in the west the small stores are nearly all out of business and there is nearly no alternative to big boxes.
Lowes in Mt Pleasant SC has poor wood. Maybe is always picked over but even when the bin is full its hard to get a straight piece. Why don't they get better wood and charge more.
Other Lowes problems - they sell H Dip galv. nails from China, rusting in the box, so much for hot diped from China.
And the people that stock the specialty shelves for some fastners "only come by once a week" (vendor stocked) if they run out, come back next Tuesday
Sounds like an Uban Legend to me. You can't believe those stories. You know, like the guy that wakes up with the sign and is in a bath tub full of ice. :)
I've noticed that employees seem to be required to acknowledge customers and it's great. the other thing is the plumber on our jobs, a young guy starting a family, works part time for HD and he does know what he's talking about.
HD has a new program called "Race Track" or something like that. They have people that go around the store and make sure that the help is concentrated where the most customers are. I know one of them and he explained it to me. My comment was, "So you spend a lot of time chasing them out of the break room." he chuckled and said, "yeh."
Yesterday I couldn't even spell plumber, today I are one.
Here at our local HD the best way to get help is to grab one of those big orange rolling stair cases . amazen !
Yah, that's right now that I think about it.
I can see them now in the security camera booth grabbing a phone and saying 'Customer needs assistance, aisle 11! aisle 11 now! He's going to climb the stair!'
rez.....LOL....better yet we should start a movement. Call it the contractors dismay movement. We could all agree..all over the country to pick up that phone after waiting 10 minutes for help and say "Does anybody actually work in this store" ?
If we get one person to do that and he gets another and they all get another we could start a movement. We can call it the Box Store Complaint Movement.
So I said Obie....I didnt mean anything by climbing that orange ladder..he said, "kid"................ ; )
Be conscious
Namaste
andy"As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is." http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Back to the Group W bench, Andy.
Gave up and went back to purchasing lumber and tools at a local lumber yard. How refreshing when the guy/gal behind the desk knows exactly what I'm asking for. And when they see you're there to support the "Mom & Pops," the service becomes outstanding. Received a delivered (free) deck package last week where the lumber looked as though I'd hand-picked every stick! The local independents are trying - give 'em another look.
Regards
Just about every contractor I know bitceeeees and mones about HD , but the old story of only game in town. I'll drive to a good yard for mill work items . For the staples it's hard to justifly 45-60 mins. each way.
Last saturday, went to HD (closet) since our local yard is closed on Saturdays. Needed a few boards, some 1x4x8'PT, a half doz 2x4x10SYP, etc. Quality on all of it was horrible to say the least....the 2x4's were nothing but knots, most in the rack had a twist or banana, I passed on all the wood products I needed. The PT 1x4 stuff was dismal, at best, there were only about 20 sticks in the rack, and the orange vest "didn't think" there were any out back.
Drove to Lowe's, the first six 2x4 I pulled off the rack were clear, straight, and went right to the cart. Passed over 2 sticks of the 1x4 as I pulled off the ten I needed. Do y'all see this great difference in quality, or is it a store manager/purchasing/location/market kind of a problem?
PB (qwality is job 1)
>. Do y'all see this great difference in quality, or is it a store >manager/purchasing/location/market kind of a problem?
It varies from store to store. At the HD 2 miles from me, the lumber is usually garbage. Out by my BIL's place, 20 miles away, his local HD usually has excellent lumber. Sometimes I take the truck when we visit, just to be able to shop there on the way back.
-- J.S.
I'll have an HD in about 15 more months. Lowe's is feeling a bit nervous.
My town is weird. We had a Lowe's (franchise owner) in the 80s during a local oil boom. The local Furrow's (Payless Cashways), put them out of business by shifting focus to builders. The old Lowe's is a bowling alley now. Then, Furrow's only had McCoy's for competition; they got complacent. Lowe's put a new store in, and clobbered Furrow's (customer service & product quality just couldn't keep up). The old Furrow's is now a rental storage facility. Lowe's has been busy "renovating" the store--so it's a mess (product lines "disappear" during the renovations, too).
Dirty little secret in many of the "box" stores is that store managers get bonuses for any reduction in cost for running the stores. So, there's a big incentive to run the store with the fewest number of employees per shift as possible. Like most things, it varies from chain to chain, and store to store. (In Dallas, each store seems to be so different, the only thing they seem to have in common is the name of the store.)
Interesting side note. Our HD site is something to see. To deal with job site mud (and the associated regulatory hassles), HD had the site contractor put in two (2) wash racks. There's a concrete apron with a cattle guard in the middle, and two crews of guys whose only job is to pressure was every vehicle coming off the site. This is probably cheaper than what a local GC is paying to have the city run a street washing truck every night past his site.
Payless did not go out of business because they got omplacent. They went bankrupt because of a leaveraged buyout in the early 90's that left them burdened with debt.
Along with years of mis-management. They could never figure out what there market was. One of the stores went "contractor" and had a Delta DJ-20 planner. That is a cabinet shop tool not a job shop tool. 6 months later they where going after the remodeling market and sold the DJ-20 and similar tools for 20 cents on the dollar.
I am in Kansas City area where the headquarters where and saw all stories about the problems and history.
Oops, I did not mean to suggest that Payless went under due to complacency. Only that the local Furrow's franchise was run as if they would never have any competition. That Payless was having problems of their own just made it a more difficult situation.
Last year I did 3 Schrock delux cabs. jobs,came to find out that a HD 10 miles away have a diff price structure. One store is in Northeastern div ( New Rochelle) and the other is in New England div. (Portchester) both in West county NY. On a 10.600. order the savings was about 400-500 roughtly. Unfortunily was not hip to that time . Who da thunk ?I
Edited 3/6/2003 1:53:53 PM ET by chris
So does anyone ever complain?
HD opened a new store nearer to me. I went there on a Saturday and they had one cashier open. Took about 15 minutes to check out. Next time I went there, same thing. My weekend time is precious, I don't need to lose sunlight waiting in line.
So I sent them an email stating that I was planning renovation work that likely would run into the $10-20K range for materials, that on two occasions I had to wait in the checkout line for 15 minutes, and that if I were in line again for 5 minutes, that I would leave my cart where it was and never walk back through their doors again.
Next week they had 4 people on the checkout lines.
As for Lowes, I was trying to see if they had a dishwasher in stock so I could drive out and pick it up (15 mile schlepp), and twice I was transferred to appliances and left on hold. The third call I made was to Lowes national customer service, they called the store and transferred me to the store manager, whom I talked to as she walked over to appliances to find the person working there. Got my answer in a minute, and they got to know from above I wasn't pleased with the service.
You can't blame the droids, although some of them are actually pretty good. The problems are usually management, and that can only be solved top-down.
As for the stock values of the company, I can't understand why HD has lost 50% market cap in the last year while Lowes has shown improvement. Maybe HD was overvalued and current prices are more in line with reality. If it were a true slowdown in the home remodeling market, then both chains would be affected similarly. HD IMHO has overbuilt in some areas and is probably operating too many stores right now, most likely to block any ideas that Lowes has of moving into certain open locations. I try and support the local mom n pop plumbing/electrical store, but all too often I go there and then end up going to HD as well.
I just read this thanks to the HousingZone March 5th Remodelers newletter
which arrived in my e-mail today
Home
Depot Pursues Professional Builders, Contractors, Remodelers
Copyright 2003 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2003 Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Atlanta Journal and Constitution February 28, 2003, Friday
some excerpts that I found interesting:
builders and general contractors make just 9 percent of their purchases
at warehouse home centers such as Home Depot, according to ProSales magazine.
They buy more than half of their supplies at lumber and building material
dealers.
Perception may be one reason. "It's a retail store," Atlanta home
builder Curtis Peart said of Home Depot.
Home Depot executives don't expect to announce a major new initiative to
boost business this year, but they acknowledge that sales to builders and
contractors could be an answer. At the moment, about 30 percent of the retailer's
sales comes from commercial customers.
The answer likely comes down to how successful Home Depot is in establishing
relationships. In a recent survey by ProSales, 85 percent of the respondents
said it's important to have a relationship with a dealer.
Home Depot will not be able to steamroll the commercial competition the
way it did as it grew its do-it-yourself empire.
" I don't see these guys rolling over and playing dead," Hofius said. "I
don't see anybody going down without a fight."
View Image
"Function is based
on more than utilitarian factors. Ambiance invites use."- Sarah Susanka
As a very recently departed "orange apron droid," basically, everything stated so far is correct and accurate on all counts. I did my "forced labor hitch" part time (weekends) for the last year as a fast way to make new industry contacts after having just moved to a new state. (For the record ... good concept, but bad idea. Oh well, we all learn from our mistakes. But ... I did get my best contract yet from someone I met there and will spend the next 4-5 months renovating their place! cha-ching)
A few points relative to prior comments:
1) Yes, they are making a concerted effort to greet / assist EVERY customer. Even to the point of threatening to fire on the spot any employee caught not greeting a customer.
2) This "corporate dictate" is issued at the same time that corporate has required all store managers to trim 20%-30% off of their store labor cost. (Hmmm, let's see, mutually opposing goals perhaps?) (and yes, they are given a financial incetive to make this happen as previously mentioned) They are doing this by cutting many of the full timers' hours almost back to part time status. The logic is that they DON"T want to make any actual "layoffs" because they fear (correctly) that the publicity of that would kill their already ailing stock values. So instead, they hit the pocket book of the very people that have been there the longest and have the most product knowledge which directly helps increase sales and customer satisfaction?!?
3) Their "training program" for new hires basically isn't. If I didn't already have the years of knowledge that I do, I wouldn't have known s**t about my area (lumber and bldg materials). They basically have a hire 'em and throw 'em to the wolves policy. I really felt bad for the new guys who truly wanted to be helpful but simply weren't given any support to be able to do so.
4) They have been gearing a lot of their newer inventory selections towards the DIYers. Don't know exactly why, but all of the internal newsletters talked about.
5) For the items that they DO carry, it is really darn hard to beat the buying power and pricing of a Billion dollar outfit. However ... they fall into the classic 80/20 rule. Meaning, that they only carry the 20% of the items that people actually use 80% of the time. Try finding a 14 foot piece of 54" drywall at a big box. Won't happen. Heck, most of them don't even know that it comes in anything other than 4x8's. Likewise for other contractor grade materials, tools, etc.
6) It is almost ALWAYS worth at least a phone call first to your local Mom & Pop. Frequently while their pricing may be slightly higher, the time saved in "one stop shopping" and truly knowledgeable help can be worth the extra cost and then some. I frequently referred folks to local shops that I knew could handle an order better than HD. Often, their pricing is better than you might expect (rarely less, but at least competitive).
7) Lumber (an other materials) definitely vary from store to store. My particular location had two other MUCH larger HD's within ten minutes on either side of us. Yet, the "pros" would almost always go out of their way to come to us because we ran a tighter, better stocked department that actually culled the crap out of the lumber piles (a personal pet peeve of mine for obvious reasons). The horror stories we would hear about the other locations gave us no end of amusement at what some people could succeed if fowling up.
8) The comment about regional pricing is also accurate. HD uses a "zone pricing" matrix which factors in the average cost of running a store in a particular region (real estate, advertising, utilities, regulations, etc. etc.) While all items are purchased at the same level on a national basis (home office buying) the mark up added will vary depend on what matrix applies to which location.
9) Lowes vs. HD is the never ending debate. In general, Lowes is more "retail" oriented. (i.e. cleaner aisles, prettier displays, better lighting, more table lamps and art work, etc. etc.) but finding someone to help you is a major shot in the dark. HD on the other hand has traditionally been more pro oriented (i.e. harder to find items, "pro pack" case buys, less "pretty" items and more "job site" items, etc.) However, since Lowes stock has been rising while HD has been falling, they may be rethinking who they want their market to be.
10) Complaining (or complimenting) at the corporate level is usually the only way to effect any true change. The store level managers may pretend to care if/when you speak to them, but they really and truly don't. They're too busy worrying about who called out sick today to care about someone's wait time in line. But, if they get that call from "the mountain high" you better believe that things will change. Try it sometime, Wood's right about what can happen. (I even called in my own store one time when a HazMat situation went unattended for several weeks. 24 hours later you would have thought that the president's children were in danger the way the clean up crew came in there!)
11) Bottom line YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). Every region and every store will be different. HD rules some markets and sucks in others. The Mom & Pop's will ALWAYS have better quality and better service but just can't run with that kind of buying power. The newest stores are always top notch at first because they're under the microscope, but as soon as that passes their true colors will emerge for better of for worse.
IMO, I will go to the locals in a heart beat if they have what I need and its reasonably priced. I expect my customers to pay me more for my quality, so I don't have any trouble doing the same for my suppliers. They know me by name, will bill me if needed, and will go out of their way to get what I need because they truly appreciate and need the business. Sure the big boxes are convenient and usually closer, but they are like the guy who will low ball the bid just to keep his crew busy, he doesn't really appreciate you he's just "settling" for you until something better comes along. Yes, I too spend lots-o-dough there, but it's never my first choice when I have a viable alternative.
There are 3 HD's in the Springs area. They all suck. Poor quality materials. Lots of Chinese junk at the same prices that they were charging for their better grade stuff that they no longer carry. Low bid has it. Stores are dirty and you have to move a ton of stuff to get to anything. Those damn ladders are always in the way. Poor attitude from mangement down and on and on.
There is only one Lowes but they have it all over HD hands down. Better stock. Much better grade of materials. Cleaner store. Helpful people. Good customer service and this Lowes is way out of the way compared to HD.
MORE TOYS....
It's business as usual at the HD we go to. No improvements in service that I've noticed.
Average Joe says:
I'll wait here while YOU go wrestle the wild alligator.