Home Depot vs. "Real <whatever> store"

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Our old wooden garage door is not in good shape. Saturday we went and had a look at the Clopay doors at the local HD and got a price including installation. In the course of conversation I said, "Why Home Depot? You&#39;re not the only people who sell Clopay. According to the Clopay Web site, sells their doors too." HD guy says, "If you buy from us, they&#39;re the people that do our installations anyway."

Today I went to the other store and got a significantly lower price (including installation) for what is in all material respects the same door but with a different model number -- and they don&#39;t use (because they don&#39;t recommend) the EZ-Set spring system that can be adjusted with a power drill.

So two conclusions:

1. Buying from HD -- and the same quite likely applies to Lowe&#39;s as well

-- doesn&#39;t necessarily mean that you get some dumb-ass lowest-bidder installer rather than somebody who knows what (s)he is doing.

1. Buying from HD -- and the same quite likely applies to Lowe&#39;s as well

-- doesn&#39;t necessarily mean that you get the best price.

Perce

[Zootal]

I would add number 3:

1. Bying from HD doesn&#39;t mean you get the best quality hardware either.

Case in point: My well pump went out, and the pump store had to order parts (which eventually took like 6 weeks to get). I needed water right then, so I went to HD and bought a pump. Little did I know that they stocked the worst quality (and cheapest) crap pumps that money can be wasted on. I thought it was actually defective, but later found that it was just a very poor quality pump. It was a FloTec, and never again will FloTec products contaminate my garden :)

I went to Mom and Pop hardware and bought a Star pump, and it&#39;s been going strong every since. Moral of the story - don&#39;t buy stuff from HD without first doing a bit of homework. Sometime they stock the cheapest crap they can get.

[DerbyDad03]

I would never have expected the best price from HD.

My experience has shown that by talking with "real stores" you can typically get a better deal. Based on the specs for the windows I bought from a real window store, I paid what would have been "in-stock" HD prices for windows that would have been at least the second level of "special order" windows at HD or Lowes.

You can typically get better lumber for the same or lower prices by going to a lumber yard.

Plumbing supplies? I&#39;ll take the parts counter in the back of a Kitchen and Bath Design Center over the plumbing aisle at a home center any day of the week, except after 12 on Saturdays and all day Sunday. :-(

The same goes for electrical supplies - use the parts counter at a lighting design store for the best prices, selection and expertise.

[evodawg]

Had customer call me about a leak at their washing machine hose bib. Had them go to HD to get 2 replacement angle valves because I was busy at another job. I removed the 2 old angle valve and tried to install the new one, no go. I looked at the tag on the valve and it all matched up. The only problem it was made in China. The threads for the copper compression are cut on USA made valves, molded on China built crap. Had him go to a "Real Hardware Store" and get the same one and it threaded right on. Talk about a waste of freakin time. When will you people get it??? You get what you pay for!!! You buy crap you get crap, not to mention wasting my time so I can charge you more. Or a major leak that would have been blamed on me!

[evodawg]

Not only do they stock crap, they stock mainly China Crap!

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Wow! That was GREAT discovery by you. Support local business always.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

The reason I thought that I *might* get a better price from HD is that HD -- the whole chain -- must buy a lot more stuff from Clopay than our

3-store local "chain" and would therefore be able to negotiate better prices. And *perhaps* HD would deal with Clopay directly rather than having to go through a regional distributor -- IOW, cutting out a middle man.

Perce

[DerbyDad03]

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re: "...and would therefore be able to negotiate better prices."

And perhaps they did, but that doesn&#39;t mean they&#39;re going to pass on their savings to you. It merely means more profit for them.

They put their stores up on every corner, they drive out the majority of the neighborhood stores, and then set their prices wherever they want. There are fewer and fewer of us who will drive the extra mile and spend the extra time to find the few places that are left that sell quality at reasonable prices. That allows the kings of the borgs to charge their lazy subjects higher prices for the same (or usually lower) quality.

All that said, I&#39;m not naive enough to think that my buying my windows from a contractor supply house or dedicated window store is going to have any impact on the borgs. It would take millions of people like you and me to put a dent in their profits and that&#39;s just not going to happen. They are just too convenient for the average consumer to pass up.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Key word here is "average" There are a lot of average people that think mediocre stuff at a perceived low price is a good deal. The big box stores sell "average" stuff, not the best. For every god story of how HD did on a contracted job, I hear 10 bad ones. If you want the best brands of the best merchandise, go to a good shop.

[Robert Allison]

But they only get what is available elsewhere and add their markup. I don&#39;t think they understand negotiations. I have tried negotiating with them and have come to understand that they are usually the highest prices for almost everything. I spent over

400,000 bucks this year for materials and I spent 345,000 of it at real stores because they would negotiate a better price on everything, if it wasn&#39;t already lower.

Lowes got the rest because they were convenient. I won&#39;t shop at Home Depot.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, My key word is best value for the buck. Most often it does not have to be the best for typicalaverage use. (over kill can be wasteful)

[benick]

When the mom and pops are open late and open Saturday afternoon and SUNDAY for WORKING folks I&#39;ll shop there.. They aren&#39;t of course which is why they are hurting and most of my money goes to HD or EBS (regional semi-bigbox). I&#39;m not missing work time to get my weekend project materials..They are refusing to change with the times and are being left behind..The blame is entirely theirs...One other thing I like is , at HD you can walk around and look at stuff and get ideas..The small mom and pops the stuff is all out in various buildings and it must be gotten for you , if you know exactly what to ask for. I&#39;m tired of feeling stupid trying to explain what I want and being laughed at by contractors and yard help...The mom and pops could also carry cheaper tools...Not everybody wants or can afford a 600 dollar Makiti tablesaw when a 100 dollar Ryobi will do for most weekend warriors..

[mm]

Not about garage doors or doors or Home Depot or really big chains or home improvement stuff, but in general, I&#39;ve wondered for a long time about the "cutting out the middle man" thing.

Doesn&#39;t this sometimes mean more work for the vendor, and so he charges middleman prices instead of true wholesale prices? Or something in between the two, and whether it really makes more work for him or not?

[Ed Pawlowski]

True, but cheap can be even more wasteful. Ideally, one should be informed as to what is available and how it suits your needs and the big box stores don&#39;t carry it all.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Agreed, Most of time I stick with prosumer grade.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, It all depends. There are times I go to local store, there are times I go to HD, there times I go on-line shopping.

[HeyBub]

If the "middleman" was not an efficient mechanism, it wouldn&#39;t be used.

The vendor probably will not charge "middleman" prices to an end user because his costs are not the same. Imagine a publisher that sells 5,000 copies of a new book, "Collecting Locomotives for Fun & Profit."

If the publisher puts all 5,000 copies on pallets and ships them to a book wholesaler, the publisher has one set of costs. If, however, the publisher sells five copies each to a thousand bookstores, he&#39;s got an entirely different set of expenses.

[KLS]

You&#39;re probably right in your second paragraph, but I am doing my part to encourage everyone around me to patronize local businesses. Recently a colleague was talking to me about replacing his kitchen floor and mentioned he&#39;d gone to HD. I told him not to waste his time or money with HD and to go to a local flooring place I&#39;d used. He eventually did just that and was very happy with the price and installation and told me that the guy who laid the floor said he thought he&#39;d laid the original floor in the house, 20+ years earlier. I&#39;ve already told my story of buying my Weber Genesis Silver B grill from a local merchant for the same price as HD was charging, but ALSO getting a partially full tank of propane and a jar of BBQ sauce. Now that&#39;s customer relations.

Plus, I don&#39;t have any objection to the local hardware stores charging

18% restocking fee as this drastically cuts down the likelihood that I myself will walk out with a defective product or an item that&#39;s missing parts, as often happens with HD. In fact, I have such a good relationship wth my neighborhood hardware store that I can exchange items without this fee, again good customer relations.

[DerbyDad03]

e quoted text -

re: I&#39;m not missing work time to get my weekend project materials.

But it&#39;s OK with you if mom and pop give up their evenings and weekends to stay open for you.

re: They are refusing to change with the times and are being left behind

There&#39;s a big difference between "refusing" to change and being able to afford staffing for evenings and weekends, along with the benefits and other costs of doing business.

re: I&#39;m tired of feeling stupid trying to explain what I want and being laughed at by contractors and yard help.

That sounds like a personal problem...or perhaps a problem with the places you shop.

Personally, I&#39;d rather deal with contractors who know their business than the staff at the borgs who were flipping hamburgers or let go from their accounting job yesterday. I spend more time explaining how things work to them so they can figure out if they carry what I need. Many times I find it on my own &#39;cuz they don&#39;t know what they carry or

- worse yet - don&#39;t know *why* they carry it.

It&#39;s at the "real" stores where I can toss out a general idea and get suggestions from them on how to get it done - and I don&#39;t feel stupid, just like I wouldn&#39;t expect them to feel stupid if they ask me for advice related to my line of work.

[cm]

There are no longer true vendors at HD or Lowes. About 6 years ago they told all the manufacturers that sold to them that they wanted the 5% that was paid to the merchandising vendors. HD and Lowes hired their own people to do the job for 2%. I can guarantee the savings was not passed onto consumers.

Kool Seal roof coatings was told to cut their price by $5 per 5 gallon bucket if they wanted to continue doing business with HD. HD then raised the retail price by $5 per bucket, increasing their profit per bucket by $10.00!

The stories go on and on........

cm