Yuk! HOME DEPOT is awful these days

[jimmy]

I certainly do. They create more jobs and cost the same.

[cm]

I tend to go to Lowe's over HD also. As for the self checkouts.... First time I used one at HD #469 in Mesa, Arizona I tried to insert my $10.00 bill and the machine would not take it. The gal in charge of the self checkouts came over to see what the problem was and then said she couldn't help me! I didn't have anymore bills so I just left my cart of merchandise there and left the store.

I was a vendor for Home Depot and Lowe's for years and was treated so badly by HD management on a regular basis that I would almost rather shop anywhere than there. Lowe's was always strict about their requirements but were never ever pricks.

AZCRAIG

[Steven L Umbach]

I still go to HD because they are so close but almost always the checkout process is slow. Now the Lowes I go to has plenty of help and they really pay attention to the lines and employees are always asking if you need help. Lowes seems to be very customer driven. HD must have changed management and the quickest way to increase profits is to cut training and payroll and raise prices. That is a poor long term strategy as customers [particualry the ones that live close to a better competitor] will eventually leave when they notice consistently poor service and higher prices but it does initially work. I also don't like the HD brand Behr paint. I recently tried Lowes brand interior latex and it was much better in my opinion.

Steve

[Roy]

1, Far west Houston, Hwy 6 & Westheimer. This must be the Hopeless Depot flagship store. Dark, rude, long lines, lumber is crap, generally clueless floor help, but not always. 2 minutes from work, but I'd rather have my stomach pumped than go there. To hell with self checkout. I deal with machines enough. Prefer human beings.

1. Richmond TX -20 miles as the crow flies from #1. Richmond/Rosenburg is still a small town, and has not lost small town values, but Houston is getting closer. Friendly folks, pretty well stocked. Worth the drive.
2. Lowes - Richmond. Well worth the drive. Mostly knowledgeable folks, good stock selection. My first choice of the Big Box stores.

Where I spent most of my money on home projects and hobby the last couple of years (of specific interest only to those in the Houston area) other than 2&3 above: Interesting that the list is comprised of essentially family businesses until you get to mail order. Wonder why that is.

1. The Cutting Edge - Houston - Mom&Pop shop. Tools, supplies, some wood.
2. Plantation Hardware - Richmond - Mom&Pop shop. Hardware, supplies
3. Home Lumber - Rosenburg - Was Mom&Pop shop, but being sold. Lumber, molding, you-name-it.
4. Ebay, Craigslist, houston.forsale - hand tools, used major tools
5. Antique, junk, yard sales - more hand tools (it's a slippery slope)
6. Lee Valley (need I say more) (another slippery slope)
7. Woodcraft mail order, mostly sale items. I like the local store, but it has a lot of stocking problems, and is about 80 miles round trip from the house. Too far to go to find out it is not there. Yep, tried calling first. I only allow a dog one bite. I still stop by if I happen to be in the area, but won't make a special trip.

Special Mention - Circle Saw - Houston - Mom&Pop shop - I think they stock spare parts for everything ever made, even pointy sticks.

Regards, Roy

[Puckdropper]

"Geo" wrote in news:1154465237.380188.110050 @h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

*snip*

They're great for prepackaged items with UPCs, but for anything that's no prepackaged or for big items like 2x4s it's much easier to have a real person use their portable scanner to check you out.

If I had to guess I would say that HD and Lowes have fewer "Just two light prepackaged items" customers than department stores like Kmart and Walmart.

Puckdropper

[Jim Hall]

Well, I guess it may be a little relative to where you live. The small town I live in doesn't have one. It has one local hardware store that does a booming business; however, they don't sell Behr paint and have anywhere close the inventory of Home Depot. For example, not too long ago I needed a 220 volt 20/50 amp combo circuit breaker. Local store said they would have to order it, take a few days and it would cost $23.95. As it happened, I was traveling a couple hundred miles that week and stopped in a Home Depot and they had it in stock for ( I think it was around) $15. Now see the store is a good thing to me.. regardless of its self checkout routine.

[Lew Hodgett]

RE: Subject

All decisions are made in Atlanta these days.

Store employees who have employed there more than a couple of years are in general, not happy, but there is nothing they can do to change things, or so I'm told by someone I believe.

Lew

[Tim Taylor]

I just got back from doing a week and four days worth of work at an Eagle (Lowe's) on Oahu. Had to island hop to Maui and the Big Island. Just from driving around and general sight seeing, HD out numbers Lowe's on the island something like 3 to 1. Obviously they must be doing something right over there. Ah, Hawaii.

[Mark & Juanita]

Definitely depends on area. Here in Northwest Tucson, service is hard to find and the registers aren't heavily manned.

OTOH, at my folks place in Colorado, HD is fairly new; we had bought Dad a lawn mower for Fathers' day at one HD in a different town (based on a trip made for other reasons) but it didn't work. We didn't see an employee until after my wife and I had moved the lawn mower from the second shelf, onto another model's box on the floor and from the box onto our cart.

*Then* the help showed up. Decided to try returning it to the closer HD, a fairly recently (maybe a little over one year old). Absolutely no problem with returning to their store, rapid response from both return cashier and person in garden dept who actually brought the new one up to the register. If all HD's were like that, they'd have a lock on the market.

As an HD stockholder, I've been significantly underwhelmed by their performance. While Lowe's has continued to increase in value (except for the last couple of weeks) and has split at least once in the past several years; HD hasn't moved much anyplace after I bought the stock and it headed downward about $20 a share.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[knotstream]

I believe what you said is true.

I just visit HD this morning. I asked the man in electrical area on something that I previous bought from HD but I don't know where it is located at. The man told me "I don't know" then turned his back and walked away.

The same and similar scenarios, I shopped at Lowes, I have never leave any Lowes store without any answer.

Since I have been experience many times like this so I am shopping at Lowes much more than HD even though Lowes it a little farther while there are many HD stores around me.

This might be a reason why now HD Supply store at Landess in Milpitas is changing their store name into Contractor Warehouse. I spoke to a store manager about the bad and really bad services at HD. I told them, I hope after they changed into a new name, they will not step on the previous footprint of HD before.

I don't think the bad service because the CEO; but the business vision of the whole HD management system.

San Jose, California.

Tim Taylor wrote:

[knotstream]

I believe what you said is true.

I just visit HD this morning. I asked the man in electrical area on something that I previous bought from HD but I don't know where it is located at. The man told me "I don't know" then turned his back and walked away.

The same and similar scenarios, I shopped at Lowes, I have never leave any Lowes store without any answer.

Since I have been experience many times like this so I am shopping at Lowes much more than HD even though Lowes it a little farther while there are many HD stores around me.

This might be a reason why now HD Supply store at Landess in Milpitas is changing their store name into Contractor Warehouse. I spoke to a store manager about the bad and really bad services at HD. I told them, I hope after they changed into a new name, they will not step on the previous footprint of HD before.

I don't think the bad service because the CEO; but the business vision of the whole HD management system.

San Jose, California.

Tim Taylor wrote:

[knotstream]

I believe what you said is true.

I just visit HD this morning. I asked the man in electrical area on something that I previous bought from HD but I don't know where it is located at. The man told me "I don't know" then turned his back and walked away.

The same and similar scenarios, I shopped at Lowes, I have never leave any Lowes store without any answer.

Since I have been experience many times like this so I am shopping at Lowes much more than HD even though Lowes it a little farther while there are many HD stores around me.

This might be a reason why now HD Supply store at Landess in Milpitas is changing their store name into Contractor Warehouse. I spoke to a store manager about the bad and really bad services at HD. I told them, I hope after they changed into a new name, they will not step on the previous footprint of HD before.

I don't think the bad service because the CEO; but the business vision of the whole HD management system.

San Jose, California.

Tim Taylor wrote:

[foggytown]

No - the solution is to find alternative sources and deprive HD (and others like them) of your money. When profits and market share look like twin kamikaze planes on the way down, THAT'S when you have their attention. And there's another thing that's effective: bad publicity. Get a group together to picket the store pointing out the bad service, etc. Local paper/TV comes around to see the "consumer rebellion" and HD corporate may start to get serious.

FoggyTown

[J. Clarke]

You mean you can _find_ one?

[Andrew Williams]

As I get more involved in my woodworking I am less and less likely to go to a big box store. There are some advantages to them however. This is my current "store" rundown.

Softwood Lumber : 84 Lumber or 88-BC (a family yard near Binghamton), both reasonable quality for 1-by and 2-by pine lumber.

Hardwood Lumber: Southern Tier Hardwoods, excellent prices per BF and they have a section where you can just buy one board if you like S4S, or get a truckload of rough or s2s, whatever.

Plywood and sheet goods: Lowes, period. There is no local source for Baltic Birch (that I know of) and Lowes has much better stock of MDF and plywoods than HD or the yards. Honestly there may be a better source for "cabinet grade" stuff but i have not really needed much of that.

"Pony Clamps", router bits that I need right now, pipe, Jorgensen etc, melamine : Home Depot: They stock more and better router bits than both Lowes in the area and the hardware stores are not even in the game.

Handheld Power tools: Lowes or HD, toss-up, depends on who has which. The local hardware stores usually just don't have anything.

Hand tools: herein lies the rub: NOBODY has anything good that I can just go and handle. It's ALL mail order. Rockler, Lee Valley, ebay whatever. I have to buy every bloody hand tool without ever touching it. Unless I want some crummy lookalike tool made by a company that "used" to make good tools. That said, both Rockler and Lee Valley have been a pleasure to order from, especially Lee Valley.

Large Power tools: hrm... probably order them from a real commercial equipment dealer who can have them shipped to their location and then load them into my trailer for me. I don't expect to ever buy another large power tool from a big-box store (although I like my Hitachi SCMS and Delta teeny DP)

There is also a decent hardware store nearby, but to be honest, their selection of tools is no better than the overlap between Lowes and HD. Knowledge base of the staff there is probably a bit better though. I would go there for pipe fittings, or vent tubes etc, stuff that I don't know about and need to ask questions.

Paint: paint store of course, Sherwin Williams.

Knowledge: I learn more in this NG than I would learn asking questions at any of these places!

[dpb]

If, as another posted noted, there were no or minimal difference (as there isn't in the BORG), certainly. I find a big difference between swiping a card at a dispensing machine like a gas pump and having to scan individual items at a checkout, however. The former makes some sense, the latter is simply an imposition on a customer (imo, ymmv, $0.02, etc., ...).

Altho in actuality unless traveling the Co-op has user/member keyed pumps so I use them for the car/pickup and everything else is delivered to the on-farm storage so no hassle (other than paying the bill at the end of the month which is getting astronomical, but that's a whole different story :( ).

[bremen68]

Same story in south central PA. I usually only go to HD, or Lowes for that matter, as a last resort. Though I gotta say, the Lowe's in our area aren't exactly spiffy on the service end either.

It used to be the borgs hired folks who had a clue about the stuff they were selling (both stores), now when/if you ask a question....You first of all pray that the individual in the vest speaks english (no offense to any non-english speaking folks, but if you're going to work with the public --- please speak the language of the public you're dealing with) and also that they have at least a clue of what they're selling.

I had a rather interesting discusion with a fellow in the lighting department about putting lights in a drop ceiling. He insited that the can style lights I was buying didn't need support, "just cut a hole in the ceiling tile and put the light in" he said....Now I know that they probably do make lights that you can do that with. The ones I was looking to buy weren't one of them. I finally picked up the package and pointed to where it said "MUST BE MOUNTED ON BRACKETS"..... The young fellow said "oh"....

Wanted to take a look at dado sets last night at a Lowes.....couldn't find them, couldn't find a vest to ask either....asked the guy across the aisle in paints....he didn't even know if they carried them....He also couldn't find anyone to ask since the store was pretty much empty of employees.

Which brings me to the next item of complaint...selection..Used to be you had three maybe even four brands to choose from on the shelf (and this goes for most stores now a days) now you get the priviledge of choosing from ONE brand.... There's a choice for ya...

I go to my local hardware stores most of the time now. The fellas and ladies there are always friendly, usually always know what they're talking about or can ask someone who does, and most of them know my name. I'm extremely fortunate to have two local stores that carry just about everything I need....

Thus ends my portion of this rant...... :-)

[Brian Elfert]

Lowes may have more floor employees, but they charge a LOT more to pay for them. A 2x4 8 foot usually costs around $2.69 at Home Depot, but will cost genrally around $3.69 at Lowes. I've found just about everything to be more at Lowes. I only go to Lowes if nobody else has an item. Also, the nearest Lowes is a 15 mile trip each way.

I've been doing most of my shopping at Menards recently even though HD is only about a mile or two further. Menards prices are always the same or less than HD these days. Home Depot was the cheapest three or four years ago, but HD prices have gone way up.

Brian Elfert

[J. Clarke]

Is that a wet fir 2x4 with mold on it or a dry pine 2x4 sans mold?

[jj]

Easy, go to Oregon or New Jersey. There you cannot fill up yourself.