I went into HD tonight and purchased
10 Post Caps (Simpson Strong Tie) bottle of drain cleaner bottle of bleach box of lag bolts container of 16d nails (170) small can of Purple primerThe bill was $120.
The damn post caps were $4 each.
You only spent around 8.50 in 1970 dollars.
I only have Menards to compare them to, but they are significantly more expensive on most items. I have both HD and Menards within a mile of my house, and regularly find that HD is 20, 30 or more % more expensive. HD does seem to carry a wider range, and occasionally does good promotional prices on their own label stuff - I recently picked up a Husky driver bit set for $8 that will last me a few years.
I now go to Menards first, and just stop at HD if there were things Menards didn't carry. And I always check the prices on the things I bought at Menards, and laugh out loud at how much I saved!
It is what it is. Price the same stuff at other stores, then buy at the best place. Factor in gas and wear and tear. I shop at local Aces because they are 15 miles closer than Home Depot. For many items, I know they are high, but I don't have to drive as far.
Everything's going up because of transportation costs. And it's going to get worse.
Much worse.
Flee to the country and start a garden. Raise chickens and rabbits. Forget the rabbits, just harvest what's there. Our event horizon is gloomy.
Steve
My problem with Home Depot is that there is no case price discount. They had some landscaping bricks for 89 cents each. I forget many to a pallet, but at least 200. They were still 89 cents each. Damn if it didn't take me a few days to few days to get a pallet at 77 cents each.
Dick
No reason to raise rabbits or deer. Start a garden and they will come. Plant an apple orchard and you can feast on apple-fed rabbit and deer.
Make your own beer. Become good friends with the game warden. It's always open season on rabbits, but do not kill them until the temperature has been below 32F for a few days. For deer it's best to be good friends with the game warden.
Dick
Common sense is short at HD. Contractor packs are much cheaper than ten loose fittings. Yet, it is sometimes hard to find unopened bags.
I had about $300 worth of goods once. I had some copper sweat fittings. Some were ten in a bag, and some were loose. One group was a group of ten, and the girl wasn't going to give them to me for the same as an identical amount of the identical product in a bag. Then there were six loose ones that wouldn't come up on computer. She said she couldn't sell them to me without a SKU or she'd lose her job. I said the sign back there was $.69, and to put them under nuts and bolts. No dice. Call the manager. Wait. Call the manager. Wait. Line backing up behind me.
After about ten minutes waiting for the manager, I just said forget it and walked out leaving it all on the counter and cart.
Sometimes they are so stupid at undercounting and undercharging, and other times, they won't move two pennies on a price if you're buying ten thousand of an item.
I just take it situation by situation now. I know what each item is when I go to the check out stand. If it rings out underpriced, oh well. If it's overpriced, I'll hold up the whole works for a price check. If they won't give it to me for the price at the bin, I'll hold everything up and ask for a manager.
Most clerks are twenty something idiots that can't make change or tell time.
Steve
Steve
I have moved to a community of 1400 people from a city approaching two million. I do welding. I believe I will have a nice arrangement going by bartering for things. We're in the process of meeting a LOT of very nice people, and this looks like the last stop before the bus goes over the cliff. We like it here. Before long, we'll know the whole town. Already gotten some tips on where to hunt for grouse and quail.
Steve
Did you know that if you need 1 pallet of something but order 1 1/2 you'll probably get 2? Seems that the workers often don't bother to remove the extra.
So how did that fairly short list add up to $120?
10 post caps @ $4 = $40 small can of purple primer = $5 maybe 16d nails = what, $10?So the bleach, drain cleaner, lag bolts, and sales tax cost $65??
Your daddy's hardware stored disappeared 25 years ago...get used to it!
Cashiers cannot set prices. Cashiers cannot ring up goods without a barcode label. Period. Get used to it.
There's one SKU for propaks and one for individual items. You can't interchange their bar codes. Get used to it!
You may not like it, but that's the way it is. Get used to it!
All systems have a general category under which they can ring up odd items.
Get used to it.
Steve
Whoops. Forgot the exclamation point. My bad.
But thats pretty much big box. Big box stores are a one trick pony. They spend a fortune on advertising to buy mind share convincing people there just is no other place to go. They pay massive salaries to a few people on top and next to nothing to the "associates". Home depots leader got over $250 Million for his last 5 years. Assuming an 8 hour day thats $25,000.00 an *hour*.
But aren't you officially agreeing you like things the way they are by going back?
If a home depot cashier did something like that it is grounds to be marched outside and thrown under the bus.
Did you put it on your Home Depot card so they could charge you 29% interest, too?
-Frank
That's why I shop/compare on the Internet. I found the same Honda mower online (delivered to my door) as Home Depot sells for $60 more. When I asked, they knocked off a mere $20. But, you have to weigh returning the item if it is defective and the time it takes to ship a package. I found other stores will match an online purchase. Home Depot shoppers: Beware.
Ehy should we get use to it??? I think we need to take our business to local merchants if we can. Let the big guys adopt to their customers.
Since you asked:
Bleach 5.97 Drain Cleaner 8.99 Nails 8.78 Primer 6.99 Lag Bolts 35.69 Post Caps 39.70
Tax 14.86
I wanted about 10' of non kink hose in HD one time but the last 25' roll they had was hacked down to about 12'. They couldn't sell half a roll, my god we would need a manager or something. They would rather throw it out than sell it. So I tracked down a manager who made the executive decision to attach one of those miscellaneous tags and sell me my 10' of hose for
10/25*Original price. It took time, but it can be done.
No, I put it on my air miles card so I can fly to Vegas again and spend some real cash.
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