Home Depot Rant

[Stormin Mormon]

Was she blonde?

[jim]

groceries:

I work installs for a chain here in Canada and the big advantage we have over small contractors is that the companie stands behind it and will fix it . I have heard so many Mike Holmes stories that you would not have the space to put them in . Suffice to say there are a lot of shisters out there and HD, RONA, or Lowes usaully stand behind there work so as cust you are not left screwed.

[George]

Why I find interesting is how these companies and organizations who claim to be capitalists are really socialists. Why do megacorps such as Wally who is soundly defended by many as being a model of Capitalism want to have the government lift money out of our pockets to pay their expenses. Why have many of the flagship brokerages and financial institutions who declare they are capitalists beg for the government to pull money out of our pockets (makes them socialists) to be bailed out of stuff like sub prime because they were greedy and made bad investments? Let them go broke just as you or I would if we were pigs at the casino.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I'd be more inclined to agree with you if I had not heard so many horror stories of people NOT being satisfied by Sears, HD, Lowes, etc when problems arose. Referrals from friends is an important factor in who I choose to do anything.

[dpb]

Are you actually an employee of the chain? If so, that's far different than the various big box stores and chains in the US which use independent contractors as their installation vehicle. This is a deliberate choice for tax/benefits reasons under US code but I'm personally convinced(*) they also use it to be able to claim liability for installation is not their problem.

(*) Based on enough anecdotal evidence here and news reports, acquaintances, etc., that I've been convinced it's more than just happenstance.

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[Broderick Crawford ililililil]

You have to know what YOU are doing. Somebody could give you the wrong advise which would be worse than no advise.

[dpb]

JoeSpareBedroom wrote: ...

Well, not entirely, apparently. A few years ago they refused to anchor an urban river development project in a city near here at least in part because the incentives offered weren't sufficient.

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[dpb]

George wrote: ...

Good ol' capitalistic profit motive, of course. As long as someone else will ante up, why not? (From their viewpoint, of course.) Simply for WallyWorld, it cuts their costs thereby raising margin and aids their competitive advantage. What's not to like?

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Perhaps their policy changed. Let's see what the future holds in store.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

How about you pay MY property taxes because I bribed town officials to write the law which requires you to do it? How do you like that idea?

[SMS]

Another datapoint...

One of the persons renting my rental in San Jose, has a rental of her own in Marin county (north of San Francisco) and was asking about my new carpet after she got a very high quote from Home Depot. I gave her the phone number of the guy I used.

In one day, the carpet company I used was over the GG bridge giving her an estimate for carpet. He was about $800 less than Home Depot, for much better quality carpet and a better pad (1/2" versus 7/16"), plus he included fixing the installation of some previously installed carpet that was still good, but wasn't stretched properly. Also he could do it sooner because for some reason he can get carpet shipped to him faster than Home Depot can get it shipped to a store. Maybe Home Depot has it go to a warehouse of their own first, I don't know why it takes them longer to get it.

[clifto]

At least in our area, if you buy all your groceries in one stop, Walmart is usually the cheapest. But if you shop different stores, there is a good number of individual items that you'll find cheaper at other stores.

Walmart is also given to opportunistic price jumps. We were going there for eggs almost exclusively, as we could get jumbo eggs for 99 cents a dozen. Suddenly one day they were $2.59; all the eggs took a massive price jump. I refuse to buy eggs there now on principle, though I have to admit the principle is easy to follow since they're now about the most expensive around for eggs. Mr. Sam is rolling in his grave.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Here (Rochester NY), we have Wegmans, which is the best grocery chain in America according to execs at OTHER grocery chains, Tops, a lesser chain, and Wal Mart, although most WM stores here don't carry produce & meats - just dry grocery and maybe some dairy & frozen. Once or twice a year, our local newspaper takes the same GROCERY shopping list to all three stores. WM has never come out cheaper for the whole list, which contains roughly $100 worth of stuff. Wegmans or Tops always comes out cheaper by five or ten bucks.

I've mentioned this to a few WM faithfuls, and they said "Yeah but still....they're cheaper on some stuff." There's no point in talking to them. Granted, some people have time to go to three different stores for all the best deals, but I don't. Even if I did have the time, I'd have to factor in the price of gasoline. What do I save after driving for a total of 30-40 minutes at 35 mph, hitting 27 red lights, with gas at $3+ per gallon? I could've spent that time breaking the club packs of meat into smaller servings at home and putting it in the freezer. Then, have a beer.

[dpb]

Go for it...just save the film of the envelope under the table for the prosecutor.

:)

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[JoeSpareBedroom]

This is exactly what WM has done in many locations. You may argue with "bribed", but we both know there's no way politicians agree to things like this without an incentive of some sort.

[dpb]

Yes, except the incentive is higher sales tax revenues, employment, and particularly in smaller markets such as here(*), enticing more distant folks to town that otherwise might come far less frequently.

OTOH, on occasion, despite WM's best efforts they don't get what they want. Wichita just turned down a rezoning application appeal and successfully defended a subsequent lawsuit seeking overturn of that decision which prevented them from placing a SuperMart in a location they had selected. The reason? -- local neighborhood homeowners' association _organized_ and put on a sufficiently good case that the location was not good for their neighborhood and traffic patterns.

So, like we have discussed before, if you don't like the way things are going in _your_ little corner of the world, organize w/ some others of like mind and change it. Don't simply say it can't be done because "everybody" is corrupt--they're not, they simply have a differing world view than you (as, fortunately, most of the world seems to).

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[JoeSpareBedroom]

That sales tax reasoning doesn't always hold true.

Enjoy:

[dpb]

Almost nothing _always_ holds true.

It all depends on what local conditions are. I forgot to add my footnote earlier about small market locations.

In areas such as this (which are by far the majority of the country by geography if not by population), the reach of a single SuperStore or other large box merchandiser may reach as far as 100 miles owing to there not being other sizable population centers in that distance. The effective shopping area here is estimated at about 80 mile radius as that is roughly the halfway point for much of the OK/TX panhandles and ne NM/se CO for here as opposed to the closest town of 20k or more in those areas. In that environment, it's very observable that the number of vehicles in the WM parking lot w/ out of county and state plates is a sizable fraction at all times and on weekends may be a sizable majority. As hard as it is to fathom in some ways, it becomes a "destination". A year or so ago I made (a rather rare for me) trip into WM and happened to be following a mother and about a 12-yr old daughter I would guess into the store. I had noticed the TX tag in the parking lot as I had pulled in behind them there. As they got into the store the young girl was looking around at all the "stuff" and says "Mom, I don't think we're in ________ any more."

While there's no doubt it has hastened the death of most of the small businesses of before, the total sales volume far exceeds that of the town prior to its opening. I, personally, would rather have the individual shops and would gladly forego the WM, but that's not the attitude of the large majority.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

When businesses get special favors from towns & cities, it's called socialism.

[Kurt Ullman]

Not by any reliable definition such as Merriam_websters

: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state Proabably 90% of what is called socialism in these kinds of discussions, isn't. If you want a catchy phrase go with corporate welfare, but then tell me why some people should get welfare and Corps. should not. Consider it an essay test (g).