I stopped at Lowe’s around noon to pick up 4 pieces of PVC conduit, some drainage piping and a couple of fittings.
After doing a little scientific research with a sledge hammer and discovering that my concrete patio would come out a lot easier than expected, I went down the street to Home Depot to pick up some OSB to cover the patio door and triple wide family room window during demo. My two shopping experiences lead me to this question:
Why is it that a middle aged guy operating the cash register at Lowe’s needs what seemed like 10 minutes (it may have been more) to get the price of 1 1/4″ PVC Conduit and a 17 year old girl at Home Depot can find 7/16″ OSB in the computer, have it on screen and only need a sheet quantity to complete the sale before I even get to the register? I even went to trouble of having all of the UPCs at one end of the cart – too bad they wouldn’t scan and he couldn’t find them in the system (is that electrical or plumbing?)
Usually, my local Home Depot is a pain to shop at and Lowe’s is like a walk in the park. Seems like some of the under achievers at HD migrated down the street to big blue.
OK rant over.
Replies
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I hear ya. I always go to Lowes for the ease of shopping. Seems they really keep their stock in order and checking out is a breeze.... when the regular girl is at the register. But once in a while she's not there and some middle manager is filling in. That's when time seems to slow to a halt and everything becomes just so darn confusing. 10 junction boxes all identical and he has to pick up each one and slowly point the scan gun at it, then look at the computer screen to make sure it rang up, then pick up the next one... I sure am glad drywall screws aren't sold individually! :D
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Methinks it is all a question of training of the individual cashier.
10 junction boxes.......... you assume that the cashier can 1) identify all 10 boxes as identical, 2) count to 10, and 3) knows how to enter a multiple quantity in the cash register or gun.
JimNever underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
Well, you know what happens when we assume. It opens the opportunity for someone like me to recite that ridiculous saying about how assume spells a$$ + u + me, but I'll refrain this time. :D--------------------------------------------------------
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You show remarkable restraint.
There are two kinds of people who never amount to much:those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.
Amazingly the company uses punching in of a quantity as a negative metric on cashier performance. They are encouraged to scan each and every item and are penalized on their reviews if they are frequent users of the multiple quantities.
Yet another incredible corporate metric improving your shopping experience.
Bruce
THAT is unbelievable! A fine example of why American business is falling behind.
One would think that using a multiple entry would be a positive for the cashier, it would be in any other business - think "efficiently moving customers through the line".
I have noticed a strange phenomena at either HD or Lowes, can't remember which:
Most frequent with plumbing fittings. Say I come with 4 - 1/2" ells, 2 - 1/2" couplings, and a can of flux.
Cashier scans ell, coupling, ell, flux, ell, coupling, ell - receipt reads 4 - ells, 2 couplings, flux. Smart machine - doesn't print until it is all done - groups and counts when the cashier does not.
Still makes me crazy during the scanning process - I hit the self check out whenever possible, usually with 2 or 3 items - of course I have to scan as individuals. Can't take it items too big or too small (can't weigh a bag with 4 screws in it).
Jim Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
I am sure there are corporate quality gurus salivating an additional metric to rate their employees. Behind the Pro desk at my local store is a board with a list of metrics applicable to front of store employees and a comparison to other surrounding stores.
Not a single one is related to number of satisfied customers or excellent service provided.
I personally have nothing against performance metrics, the problem is that metric becomes the end goal with a complete loss of focus on creating satisfied customers and providing excellent service. Just ask the flock of managers evaluating the look of the display at the end of the lumber aisle who do not have the courtesy to get out of the way for a customer trying to by some wood or better yet, help them get the wood.
Just my $.02.
Bruce
>>Not a single one is related to number of satisfied customers or excellent service provided. <<
I'd say that 'splains a lot!
Jim Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
"I am sure there are corporate quality gurus salivating an additional metric to rate their employees. Behind the Pro desk at my local store is a board with a list of metrics applicable to front of store employees and a comparison to other surrounding stores.
Not a single one is related to number of satisfied customers or excellent service provided. "
A friend of mine taught management accounting courses; one concept he had a very hard time explaining was a similar thing about incentives. If you give employees bonuses based on incentives, they will maximize those incentives. That's obvious. But if, say, your incentives are based on sales only, not margin, employees will find ways to maximize sales - which might mean you are losing money, but the employees will max out the bonuses. Like any metric, you have to make sure you're not setting your business up to fail by having everyone focus on what you're measuring, not on the bottom line. Any smart manager will make sure he looks good in the ways that his bosses are measuring. That might or might not be good for the business. But, if that's what you're measuring, that's what you're going to get.
I became a cynic of lots of metrics in my life in engineering. Total Quality Management hit the firm I was working at like earthquake. The quality managers were going to shake things up. The company went under about two years after I left and about 4 after the TQM initiative.
Every quarter Quality metrics were improving, but they forgot to ask the clients if they were happy-they were not.
Bruce
One reason stores encourage the "scan every item" is that clerks can't always tell when there is a difference. Probably more of a grocery store issue than home center, but the idea is to make sure that each flavor of yogurt is accounted for, rather than 12 blueberry, when in fact you have 3 blueberry, 4 peach, and 5 plain.
>>10 junction boxes.......... you assume that the cashier can 1) identify all 10 boxes as identical, 2) count to 10, and 3) knows how to enter a multiple quantity in the cash register or gun.
Those stores carry a LOT of different products, some with very similar appearance. I don't blame them for ringing such stuff separately.
(Take a stroll down the junction box aisle and look closely at thwe sometimes minor variations.)
Also, I've had cashiers double check with me when a few of seemingly identical items are different: which has saved me some return trips.
Remember Mary Dyer, a Christian Martyr (Thank you, Puritans) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_DyerMay your whole life become a response to the truth that you've always been loved, you are loved and you always will be loved" Rob Bell, Nooma, "Bullhorn"
HD yesterday, I bought a dozen white shelf brackets for some pantry shelves. The cashier counted them by hand and then scanned the SAME ONE twelve times (they CLAIM that they can't enter a quantity on screen but I know that's BS). I've seen this happen many times.
The worst was the guy who bought the entire bin of closet pole stock, must have been several hundred feet, some looked like corkscrews, it took him half an hour to check out because the girl at the register had to take each piece off the cart, stand it up against the column behind her to measure the length (the column is marked in feet and inches), scan the UPC code, type in the number of feet, and then set it in a different cart and do it all over again. HD lost a lot of business that half-hour because it was the ONLY register open. There must have been fifteen or twenty people drop their stuff in a random spot in the store and walk out.
I really hate the multiple scanning. I will always tell them "I have five of that" but it's typically to no avail.My receipts from HD & Lowes are already way too long, the last thing I need is to have 8 entries of the same item.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
When I brought this up to one of the cashiers at HD one time, he explained that they got some sort of credit for the number of "sales". Ringing it up 5 separate times counted as 5, while ringing it up as 5 items only counted as 1. That said, it hasn't happend to me lately.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
I'm guess it's because they never learner to use the 5 @ function. And not only that, they dont trust you to count it right. The receipt is so long so you have the number to call and complain about your crappy service.
I once bought the whole contents of a Lowes sale display rack.
It was the discontinued trim tile pieces and small tile squares that they were no longer going to carry having been replaced with a different manu/distributor. $500 for about $6,000 retail price.
Case boxes of the same mixed in with 10 of this and 20 of that kind of thing.
I ended up with a very long receipt worthy of a museum rarity as each piece had to be individually accounted for, count the pieces in one box times the number of boxes to get the number of that particular tile plus all the individual pieces.
Luckily they sent over a separate clerk as to not block the other customers.
Your episode was the fault of the store manager not having a routine in place to prevent that from happening. They all have to deal with the specs from corporate headquarters but there are ways around everything.
be just another story, No charge for that as I had managed to beat billjustbill to the punch on that one.
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Edited 5/5/2008 11:44 am ET by rez
When I worked at HD it wasn't uncommon for customers to pay for kitchens with gift cards they'd been accummulating. $15,000 worth of kitchen cabinets is a lot of gift cards, so the mgr usually opened a register just for that transaction.
With fewer and fewer employees now, I don't think it's done much. There's generally no one available they can pull to do that.
I remember distinctly being in the middle of a customer meeting at HD (on the sales floor, of course) and having 3 other people standing at my desk demanding someone help them in appliances and flooring. When I called the manager, he said no one was available and refused to even come on the floor and apologize to the 3 customers for not being able to get to them quickly.
And they wonder why they are closing stores???
I just read in the Wall Street Journal that HD will now begin closing 15 stores. The demise of BuildersSquare started in the same fashion. Cannot imagine what happens to all that inventory once the Corp dies.Mike
rez takes all that inventory home...
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I would love to be invited to the 'fire' sale when they close the stores. But I suspect they just move the inventory from store - 2 - store. Mike
Most companies in that position usually try to sell inventory where it sits because trucking it from one store to another is so expensive.
As usual, only half the story gets posted. HD is closing less than two dozen stores and are also opening close to 50 new stores. The former chairman, Bob Nardelli operated under the build many stores, let then cannibalize each other. Current Chairman Blake says that's nonsense and the 15 or so stores they are closing are too close to other stores or are just very unproductive.
And the gentleman with the earlier post about store policies being driven by customer behavior is right on. I was a millwork supervisor for a brief period - and I couldn't believe what I saw. Customers actually fighting each other (many were 2 women going at it - mostly because one wanted to be waited on before another). Theft schemes were amazing - I found folks bundling molding so that pieces could be hidden in the middle of the bundle.
And half the contractors we had I wouldn't allow to do anything for me. One contractor got me on the side - he needed instruction for coping molding because the customer wanted it - all he ever did was sloppy miters on a chop saw (he admitted).
I'm a business person with many careers including teaching woodshop - they begged me to stay - and they were paying me good money. But retail hours and the customers drove me nuts. Are you raising your kids to work in a big box store - I doubt it - except for some money for college. Maybe with the building downturn, we can get some good, experienced trades folks to staff some big box stores - they know the products, how to install them and know how to work with people.
I'm a business person with many careers including teaching woodshop - they begged me to stay - and they were paying me good money. But retail hours and the customers drove me nuts. Are you raising your kids to work in a big box store - I doubt it - except for some money for college. Maybe with the building downturn, we can get some good, experienced trades folks to staff some big box stores - they know the products, how to install them and know how to work with people.
Funny that should mention that. My dad has been in outside sales for about 20 years for a large lumber yard in a chain of about 35 stores. On his sales, we was responsible for everything - material takeoffs, figuring out what the architect was really trying to draw, window and door orders, measuring for trim, coordinating deliveries, delivering whatever he could in his compact pickup, hand moving entire loads when they got delivered to the wrong site, etc.
He was told 2 weeks ago that his services were no longer needed due to the housing market in the Chicago area. Good news is that he can take early retirement (at a reduced rate of course) and maintain his health & life insurance. Social Security kicks in in a few years.
In the mean time he's been talking to all of the other lumber yards and box stores and they all say the same thing: We're happy with the people we have but we'll keep your info on file. Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, etc. don't necessarily want experienced people.
Both Lowes and HD do want experienced people as product specialists. Go online to their respective web sites - they have job listings for all the stores by geographic area. Small yards are hurting so they are trying to hold onto their specialists. But as anyone can verify, the big box stores can certainly use a lot more experienced folks.
I heard the checkout line at the Findlay OH HD was over 1 1/2 hours on saturday - and that they don't transfer inventory in or out
Remember Mary Dyer, a Christian Martyr (Thank you, Puritans) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Dyer
May your whole life become a response to the truth that you've always been loved, you are loved and you always will be loved" Rob Bell, Nooma, "Bullhorn"
Edited 5/7/2008 1:06 pm ET by rjw
This the HD in B'boro that is closing by any chance? I was passing through the rotary on Sat. morn. and saw a guy with an orange vest and a large sign advertising the big HD going out of biz. sale. Then I read in the Sunday Boston Globe that they're closing ~15 stores, and cancelling plans to open a bunch more. Oh well.
Well, if you all promise not to tell HD, here's a true story:
I was pushing one of the ordinary grocery store type carts around HD, and had it quite full. The last item I needed was an 8 ft. "A" frame ladder. So, I make getting the ladder my last stop, and go to checkout.
The nice kid at the cash register helped me take the ladder off the top of the cart, and lean it against the wall, all the while listening to that annoying beep thing that's supposed to identify merchandise not paid for going out the door. He spent quite a while going thru the whole cart, ringing it all up and bagging it. I paid over $500 for the cart full of stuff, and he helped put the ladder back on top of it. The guy who checks your receipt at the door glanced at it and found nothing wrong.
It was only when I got it all home and unloaded that it struck me as strange that I had a $350 ladder, so the rest of the c**p in the cart had to be only $150.
Yup, the kid forgot to ring up the big ladder. ;-)
-- J.S.
Edited 5/5/2008 8:43 pm ET by JohnSprungX
I know this one belongs in the thread with the bargains, but I'm not b!tching about Home Depot no more.... until they tick me off again. Last weekend there was a Schluter shower kit in a box (unopened) in the clearance stuff. 32x60 shower, and I have one coming up. SO, this thing was marked down to $388 from $502.
I took the thing to the checkout and the kid in the black "pro" shirt got the question - 'think you can take a little more off this one since nobody in Alabama much knows Schulter from shinola?' and I'll be danged if he didn't knock $200 more off the discounted price.
I was nearly speechless (and that doesn't happen too often).... The older I get, the better I was....
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Heh - smooth move... that's funny. I was so surprised I didn't know what to say... I was prepared to be told to shove it, though!The older I get, the better I was....
It must be a regional thing.
Lowes never has the material i am looking for or has 1 and I need 14. Plus I need to spend an hour looking thru the store to find it.
HD I rarely walk out disappointed. From materials selection, quantity and checkout.
I shop at probably 5 different home depots and avoid the 2 lowes in the area.
HD even just lowered their colonial trim pricing to get it closer to in line with the lumber yards. (I dont by much lumber or trim from the big box stores)
Jeff in Philly PA area.
Well, FWIW, many moons ago I was an Ops manager at Lowe's, my wife has been an HR manager for both Blowe's and Depot, and a friend now is the receiving manager at a Depot.
The corporate mentality in reference to entering multiples is this: Cashiers cannot be trusted to make the decision whether all items in a group are in fact the same. they are instructed(under penalty of disciniplary action) to scan every single item. I can tell you dozens of stories of items not being scanned at all(like the ladder above), or of customers saying "they're all the same" and the cashier ringing up 10 $39 doorknobs instead of 1 @ $39 and the other 9 @ $119. Or pushing a cart up to the checkout with 12 sheets of 1/2 OSB "they're all the same"...except that the 10 sheets on the bottom were actually 3/4 oak ply.
It's cheaper to hire another cashier to cover the extra time each cashier takes, than to lose $5k a day in front-end shrink.(not that they do actually hire another...)
And don't get me wrong...I don't love or blindly defend the big-boxes, but alot of the policies that drive us nuts are in place because people scam them all...day...long.
...but alot of the policies that drive us nuts are in place because people scam them all...day...long.
What??? You make it sound like they deal with a bunch of contractors of sumthin!--------------------------------------------------------
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deadman1 said :
The corporate mentality in reference to entering multiples is this: Cashiers cannot be trusted to make the decision whether all items in a group are in fact the same.
And he's right! I also work for a large corporation.
Many of the corporate policies trickle down to retardation at the ground level.
Here's a concept,
Let's hire people who can speak english, read, write, count to 10 with out help, and heaven forbid make a decision.
Now this would cost a little more, people with those attributes will generally need to be paid a higher wage. Corporate would have to actually qualify people at the interview, and not just hire anyone who completed the application.
I'll bet that $5000 a day front end shrink could pay for it.
But hey, I'm just a customer
they did...
a lot of them...
HD is cutting back again on CS and employees around here...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Darn, just when I was hoping to get a job there! :(--------------------------------------------------------
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A new favorite line from an HD employee today:
Guy walking in the store in front of me asks someone at customer service where the window screen is.
Her response verbatum: Window Screen...Like the kind for windows?
Another thing about HD that pizzes me off. Why do they feel the need to turn half of the aisles in the store 90 degrees to the rest of the store? Can't they just come up with one functional merchandise layout and stick to it in all stores for those of us that shop at multiple stores or would that be too difficult?
The worst wait times I've had at Lowe's or HD have been over plumbing supplies. All the lumber is apparently SKU'd, all the plumbing is apparently not. Maybe that's because there are a gajillion SKU's in that dept.
After having to go back to the dept for the cashier to find another item with a bar code tag or get the number, I now check before I head to the register and write down the correct SKU.
We have a small local building supply nearby, so I make it a point to go there now. Between them and the local ACE I can get my stuff faster even if I have to drive a bit father.
I went into HomeDesperate once and bought four sticks of 1-inch PVC coated steel gas pipe. They give you two free cuts and threads per stick. I needed about twenty cuts and threads.
I get up to the counter and no one knows how to ring up a cut and thread. There is no sku number for it. The manager walks by on his way out to lunch while the clerk is trying to figure out what to do. About ten different people get called to the front to see if they can figure it out. They are looking in books, and calling other stores, trying to figure out the correct sku.
Half an hour passes, and the manager is coming back in from his lunch, sees the crowd at the register, and asks what is going on. So, they tell him. He looks at me, and asks if I was there when he left, and I told him that, yes I'd been there since he left. He apologized for the wait, and told me to take the pipe and go.
We had a store which started out in my home town called Orchard Supply Hardware. The whole thing began with one store that specialized in service to farmers and ranchers mostly but after 10 to 15 years, they broadened their customer base and number of stores. It was fantastic for service with a very knowledgeable sales crews who could tell you just about anything you wanted to know. They even had a very well known garden and nursery man on staff that did nothing but give advice on growing anything from fruit trees to alfalfa. They treated their staff as family and some of the floor sales guys stayed with the store as much as 25 to 35 years, made a decent living at it too. About 20 years ago, damn I'm getting old, they were bought out and now they've got stores all over California with some of the dumbest sales help know to man kind. None, I repeat none, of their hardware is really quality stuff and yet they seem to be doing OK. Mass appeal I guess but I no longer shop there in favor of another small local family hardware that's top notch called Dale Hardware. Funny, they are doing a bang up business and their sales crews are very knowledgeable, like Orchard use to be. See the pattern for success? In fact, they don't hire anyone without a serious sit down interview with the other sales clerks to make sure they know their stuff. Even the owners son was refused a job till he spent a couple years on the sales floor at another hardware store just to learn the trade. I sure hope they don't sell out to the big chains of hardware stores.
I hope they hold out against the big guys, too. Retail trends cycle, and I think we're heading for a cycle where people value big selection, but also think that knowledgeable people are as much of an asset as 200k SKU's. The big box's high turnover means that very few people with much background are on the sales floor at a given time, and I think shoppers are beginning to ask more of a retailer now that money is getting tighter.
We can hope that the people who believe in their work hang in there!
We had a store which started out in my home town called Orchard Supply Hardware.
Didn't know they were still in business - the ones around here closed several years ago.
IIRC, OSH was bought out by Sears.
-- J.S.
You really want to have some fun at the big box? Try placing an order. They both tell you that you can place orders for stock items and have it ready when you come in.
The catch you ask?
You have to know the skew number for everything you're ordering. Their computer doesnt know what a 2x4 is, it only knows it by the skew.
By the time you get all the skews you might-as-well just load the cart yourself.
Here's a good one - recent special orders.
I go to local HD and order 1 piece of FlexTrim for customer #1 in my name, pay for it on CC.
About a week later I go to the same store and order two kitchen cabinets, fill strips, etc with and for customer #2. Customer #2 pays for cabinets etc on his CC.
HD Pro desk calls a few days later and says my FlexTrim is in and can be picked up anytime. I was on a roof in a different town when they called and said I would not be there until after 5:00 (after the pro desk closes); pro desk says no problem will give it to the CS desk - I should pick it up there.
I showed up about 6:00 at CS desk - ask for my special order - give them my name and phone number (which the pro desk called to tell me it had arrived). They searched high and low in the computer and could only come up with the kitchen cabinet order in customer #2's name and mine. This went on for about 20 minutes when I finally saw w-a-a-y-y-y back in their storage bins, a box with my moulding profile on the end tag.
I asked them to humor me and see if the box in Bin #3 was mine. They did, it was - had my name on it - once they had the order number from the box they could finally produce my order records - UNDER CUSTOMER #2's NAME in the computer. On a positive note - they did know it was paid for already.
Customer #2's cabinets should be along any day now - I can't wait for this adventure.
JimNever underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
yall are really being hard on home depot employees, just remember the people that are too stupid to work there are hired by the county as building inspectors
Around here, you need to be related to someone fairly high placed in state, county or city government to be a building inspector.
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
You really want to have some fun at the big box? Try placing an order.
Don't know about Lowes, but HD offers "probook" - it's a CD they give out that you install on your computer.
You can update the pricing to your local store, and the ENTIRE store stock is in the catalog.
So, you just find what you want, enter the quantity, and then click a button. It goes to the store, they pull it, an hour later you walk in, pay, and load - in and out in about 5 minutes.
The probook CD also does quotes - so you can enter labor costs, markups, and it will prepare a full quote for you.
Tried to buy a case of OSI caulk at HD using the self checkout. Of course, the case SKU is not registering, so the young girl monitoring the self checkouts takes the box, opens it, scans one tube of caulk at her register and hands me the receipt. I didn't notice until walking out that she didn't enter in qty 12, just 1. Was it a mistake or did she really think a whole case of caulk was $5?
I was a little ashamed that I didn't go back to correct the error (but I got over it). I rationalize it by thinking it's their way of compensating me for all the extra trips to return defective stuff that someone just threw back on the shelf without checking. With gas at $4, return trips are starting to add up fast.
Life tends to balance its books from time to time.
I had probook for awhile. I almost slashed my wrist looking for the price of a 2x4.
Typed in 2x4, I got 35 different types,, and I never found the one that I knew damn well cost 2 bucks.
Typed in 2x4, I got 35 different types,, and I never found the one that I knew damn well cost 2 bucks.
I guess it's like anything else, there are "tricks" to using it. Might have been your local store, too.
If I type in "lumber", it takes me to a page that starts with 2x4x8's - the ones you were looking for, normal $2 2x4's.
I was in our local Ace Hardware store when a woman came in asking to buy nails. One of the employees asked her 'what kind' and she pulled out a Phillips screwdriver and said 'the kind that this is for.' I was laughing so hard I had to turn away ... didn't stick around to hear whether she really wanted Piffin screws or in fact was using the Phillips screwdriver as a hammer.
Jeff