Noticed Lowes is now charging for those metal paintcan opener keys instead of giving them out with a paint purchase.
Doesn’t mean much to me except I remember a different local bigbox years back that once suddenly started charging for paint stir sticks.
Can you believe that? Buy a gallon of paint and they charge you if you want a stick.
Well, that local bigbox shortly thereafter went out of business.
Just sayin’.
Replies
Yeah, and remember when the yard would bring a bundle of pencils when they dropped the lumber load? And hats and t-shirts were free too?
I went up to the DeWalt guys putting up a display at Lowe's the other day - said Hey, if I can show you a half dozen DeWalt tools in my truck right now, will you give me a free battery? One guy said No, the other guy said Yes.
Then he added - If you buy a tool. Screw you j3rkoff. Right now I'm so broke I can't even afford to pay attention. I should buy a new tool when my mother-in-law is paying my worker's comp premiums to try to keep me in business? The guy who said No at first gave me a free t-shirt with the DeWalt logo. I liked the fact that he was honest, not a smart mouth like his partner, and I liked the fact he gave me a free t-shirt. So I gave him a free t-shirt with my logo on it. He was tickled pink.
I did buy a paint stick at a small hardware store the other day when in a town and realized I didn't have one with me for a final touchup job.
heh. 15cents.
Have to admit it was thicker than the bigbox style and felt more solid when stirring.
be stuck with a stick
WHAT!!! you paid for a stir stick?I'll bet you still have every last 2x offcut from your jobs stacked to the ceiling. Break out that table saw and rip a zillion.On another note: Almost time for another bunk of OSB and wouldn't ya know it - price just jumped to $5.85
Ya, saw that. It was more like $6.84 up this way.
Five days later. OSB has dropped a bit from $5.85 to $5.52.
With all these minor movements I'm thinking it's beyond price flucuations from supply and demand and they are just bouncing it as a market ploy to get folks to open their wallet.
The bigboxes are masters of that.
Tshirts go a long way towards future business, and good will. Seems a lot of people forget about the little things like that.
The guy was probably tickled because most people want, want, want when they see him. For once somebody gave him something. Good move.
Expert. Since 10:00 A.M.
Wow. He didn't give a free $70 battery to you just for walking by, what a jerk. Asking for a free battery was probably as funny as the million times he gets asked about a free drill. Sounds like the guy making $8 an hour didn't have a sense of humor. Most people usually love to be bother by the peanut gallery while trying to work. Odd. Vic.
hahaha
Sounds like you and him are soul mates!
It was his sarcasm and bitter attitude I found so annoying. Rather than take my gambit as an opportunity to engage me in conversation, he instead replied with a conversation ender, in a smart-aleck tone.
When the promotional displays are set up, the goal is to gain the attention of passers-by, to promote an interest in the company's products. By exhibiting an interest in their display, and showing myself a fan of their products, I was giving them an opportunity to get their promotional event off to a good start.
I'm guessing not too many people who happened to be "walking by" that morning also just happened to have at least a half dozen of their tools on them (I had seven). Had they taken the time to talk with me, they would also have found out that I was one of the early purchasers of their new track saw, and published a youtube video of it in use, which has drawn a 4-star rating and nearly a thousand views.
The sales persons running the promotion often have a measure of leeway in offering free promotional items. Since I had heard that DeWalt was phasing out their old 18 v batteries and would be dumping them from their inventory, I figured it was likely that they would be offering them in their promotion - and I was right. But they wanted you to buy a tool with it. That's fine - its their stuff, so its their right to make their own ground rules. It wasn't the ground rules that bothered me as much as the flippant way they were relayed.
I didn't chose to respond in a rude or sarcastic manner, I simply went on my way, figuring, Hey, it doesn't hurt to ask. His associate took the opportunity to put the encounter on a positive note (what sales people are supposed to do), and gave me a free shirt. So I reciprocated, and gave him a free shirt. Seemed like it made his day.
View Image bakersfieldremodel.com
Edited 7/27/2009 8:54 am by Huck
Thanks for your postI read a book where the author stated the avg person rarely asks for anything and yet they shouldAs a society we've gotten to the point where we don't ask for favors anymoreI needed to borrow a box fan today and thought about asking a neighbor and now that I'm thinking about it he would have gladly loaned one to meI did a favor for him recently and he would like to reciprocate if I would just give him an opportunityMy Dad was given a lot of things 40-50 years agoTools, fishing gear, sports equip, you name itHe was a business man and he gave away things tooIt was different back then
It was different back then
Amen to that, what kinda got this thread started.
One thing I take very seriously is my promotional stuff. I get shirts and sweatshirts - (t-shirts, long sleeve t-shirts, hoodies, and good quality polo shirts) printed up with my logo on them, and give them to my best subcontractors and my good customers, and people I do business with. I gave some to my local Lowes salesmen who have treated me very good, and they seemed very appreciative.
Another thing I try to do is when I get really good service, I call the complaint line and tell them how happy I was with their salespeople (I name names). Always blows them away, I can tell by their response.
View Image
View Image bakersfieldremodel.com
Things have tightened up a lot, as you well know, and it seems like many business seem to think that the advertizing budget needs to be the first thing to go.
I never got that far with my business, but did find that a little volunteer labor could generate a big return. The small pencils and pens I gave away may or may not have gotten me a few calls. Volunteering to help build a school play set, or free repair work on a community center and church sure did help though.
Throw away a few hours on some of those projects and give out some of your promotional stuff and you phone will start ringing.
I think I'da got one of my dead batteries and swapped it out in the Dwalt tool the guys was using to set up the display.
When he picks up an Impact or drill and the batt. is shot, he'd understand the frustration. LOL.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
View Image
Why is it that every time I see a display to showcase a new tool that the battery is dead, dead, dead.I literally cannot think of one time where I was able to demo a tool in HD or Lowes, with the one exception of a Hilti screwgun while the Hilti guy was in HD. That doesn't seem very effective as a demonstration.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Well, the sticking point might be all the different chargers you'd need...and expecting a big box wage slave to keep them all charged up. But with the way sales have been off they might have the free time to do it.
Around here, tools are usually displayed without batteries depending how nice of a neighborhood the store is in tho....
Just my two cents worth...
Rafael
Ya, no batteries and the tools are secured to their shelving mounts so you can't pick them up
or the connection cable is so short you've got to lean forward to look at the thing.
They have to do that tho' or the tools will be walking outta the store with or without batteries. Sad state of affairs.
Well i seen some where the tool body was empty and the battery pack was hollow. Pick up that 24volt sucker and it weighed about the same as a phillips screwdriver. now that's technology.
Always wondered tho...if you'd steal the one with the battery pack are you smart enough to find batteries and chargers.
rafael
If he was really nice to you, how much did you plan to spend? Or were you just really there to waste him time while trying to get something for free? Nothing wrong with that, but I'd not get mad if someone saw throught my game and decided they didn't want to play along. In the end, how much money did his bad attitude really cost them? What is the dollar amount that you hide in your wallet to spend with pleasant display setter-uppers? Vic
You wanna clean up this mess or should I?
View Image
Edited to add:Bet ya V works as a rep at those booths and could tell you stories.
Does a soul good to get things off the chest so maybe it should run a spell.
Ferget I said anything.
seeyou invented every and anything
Edited 7/27/2009 10:28 am ET by rez
Bet ya V works as a rep at those booths
My thinking too. Tough times right now, lotta frustrated tradespeople not working to their potential. Me included, sometimes! I've got several "maybe"s on the back burner right now - and meanwhile, at least the competition has thinned significantly!
Now, about those bottle openers for painters - is that symbolic of a larger issue?
View Image bakersfieldremodel.com
Edited 7/27/2009 11:04 am by Huck
Maybe the influx of self-twist caps into the bulk of the populace.
One of the hardest jobs can be running a counter/rep kind of thing.
People can be so strange. Recalling years back when manning a counter in a store.
Early morning sun shining, birds tweeting kind of thing and feeling great when a customer enters and unloads, complaining, accusing, yadayada and then leaves.
I stand there drained and wondering what the hey happened that stole my vibe.
Other times it could be so rewarding and enjoyable chewing the fat with folks.
Guess I kinda cheaped out selecting the solo tradesman route with more control of my envirornment. 2x's carry very little vocal communication.
be but when they do LOOK OUT!!!snork*
I was thinking more along the lines of painters with alcohol problems...
For four years I was a letter-carrier (mailman) in the Santa Barbara area. I discovered that the minute you walk out in public with that uniform, you become the focus of people's frustration / anger with the government. Hoo-boy the stuff I used to get.
One guy went ballistic on me because a letter he mailed took too long to get there. What could I say? I told him "On behalf of the US Post Office, I'd like to apologize to you." All of a sudden his attitude changed, he lost his angry tone, and said, "You didn't do anything wrong, why are you apologizing?" Funny that didn't occur to him as he was yelling at me! Dealing with the public can be a challenge, no doubt!View Image bakersfieldremodel.com
So I gave him a free t-shirt with my logo on it. He was tickled pink.
Was it the one off your back? :-)
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Most beer comes with twist off caps these days and you can open paint cans with just about anything so what do you need those openers for any ways?
How funny - I never noticed the bottle cap opener on those things before. Duh!View Image bakersfieldremodel.com
snorK* I didn't either!
on the plus side. I had to build some carts for loading furniture into a building. 33 sheets of hw ply $40 per sheet. needed them cut up in 4 different sizes, total off the top of my head is like 72 cuts. sales lady said done and done, no extra charge. bought them tues night, picked them up thursday morning, cut, stacked and 2 guys handing me the pieces in the back of the truck. saved me a ton of time. had 10 carts built in 4 hours.
View Image
as you can see in the pic, on four carts I used some of the offcuts to complete the backs on 4 of them. I had them forked up , dropped and could roll them right where I needed them.
p.s. sorry about the orientation, just sent that from my phone and am to lazy to figure it out.
I Love my local lowes
>>p.s. sorry about the orientation, just sent that from my phone and am to lazy to figure it out.
Glad you added that.
Was gonna sk ho you got it to stick to the wall.
Sure would make remoldedls in a office full of worrk stations, if I could roll things around the walls instaed of through a rat maze of isle <g>
built em lopsided, they kept fallin over..... used too much advice from this site :)
put in 160 hrs in 2 1/2 weeks, part of the reason I was to danged tired to flip the pic. got-rdone though.