Lowes vs Home Depot vs Sears

[obsessive]

there's a considerable amount of variability store-to-store.

I'd add that as a third category: store to store variability

I'm a huge fan of Sears partly because of the employees in the store nearest me. Most have been there for many years and are all about customer satisfaction. Although Sears.com can get screwy at times, if I print the web page and go to the store they take care of it. I've had the opposite experience in another store - huge variability. So A (store)/B (website) since they work together and D (variability).

My HD store experiences have been consistently good. Most employees try to assist as best they can, some being ex-contractors and quite knowledgable, and customer service has been fantastic when I've used them. I don't care for their website, and find searching difficult. A (store) / D (website) / A (variability)

A Lowes experience: long returns line going out of the door, with only 1 person doing returns. 6 cashiers, 4 with no customers. Lady in line asks a manager to bring a cashier to help with returns. Manager says loud enough for everyone to hear, "Those employees are doing sales, where we make money. I'm not moving them over here, where we lose money."

Well Mr. Manager, your store just lost all future sales from most of the people in that line. My experience with employees at Lowes has been okay (young and little knowledge but they do try to help), but I've obviously found some Lowes managers downright horrible. I think their store to store price differences for the same product are ridiculous. And now joining with a hate group in Florida towards towards 1.5 billion people? C (stores) / C (website) / F (variability) / F- (hate and ignorance)

 

[NUTTSGT]

Lowes, I try to stay out of that store. Generally I waste my time when I go in there.

HD, Generally where I shop for home projects.

Menard's, been out shopping Lowes and they have only been in their location 3 years.

I guess all three depend on your location and who they hire.

Sears, it's ok, haven't really had a problem inthe store.

Sears.com, yeah it ***** the high horse. I'm not sure what idiot thought of running a website like that. They do sell third party (or whatever you want to call it) and alot of the stuff is junk, have fun returning for a credit. Why a third party seller ? People use their Sears card and they make the interest off of that sale if not paid in full. They probably also charge the other stores for website usage. win win for sears.

 

[R7237]

Sears local is a great store and very easy to deal with. Because it is a small town store they usually have everything I look for and don't sell out (like gearwrench deals and crow bars recently). They order anything I need (like tool boxes). Lowes is my backup (30 miles away) followed by HD (40 miles away).

 

[amolaver]

There will /always/ be another boogeyman. Just ask the Irish, French, Germans, Russians, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Persians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Italians, and don't forget the Pilgrims. Pandering to the current scare is hardly showing spine "in the face of adversity".

Much to my amusement, it seems like Lowes has shot themselves in the foot. The crowd most likely to be pleased by shunning the scary Muslims is, I suspect, also the crowd most likely to pay attention to the COO... and thus the same group of people who've already written Lowes off for selling junk. So hats off to the management team there. They've just pleased a group of people who won't patronize Lowes anyhow.

+1 well said.

ahm

 

[Grogan14]

There will /always/ be another boogeyman. Just ask the Irish, French, Germans, Russians, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Persians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Italians, and don't forget the Pilgrims. Pandering to the current scare is hardly showing spine "in the face of adversity".

Much to my amusement, it seems like Lowes has shot themselves in the foot. The crowd most likely to be pleased by shunning the scary Muslims is, I suspect, also the crowd most likely to pay attention to the COO... and thus the same group of people who've already written Lowes off for selling junk. So hats off to the management team there. They've just pleased a group of people who won't patronize Lowes anyhow.

-1

Very thinly veiled political rant.

 

[El Barto]

Lowe's in-store around me is good, but more expensive then Home Depot. Not too many associates around to help out. Lowe's website *****. Doesn't seem very good for searching items.

Home Depot is what it is; lots of semi-knowledgeable kids selling bulk items. Sometimes I find a store where it seems everyone they hire has some knowledge of the department where they work and they are very helpful. You ask where something is, and they walk you too it. More then not, Home Depot has the aforementioned kids and the gangbanger-worker thrown in for good measure. I usually have to find what I need without any "help".

Sears; well 90% of the time all Sears are alike; unknowledgeable staff that is just trained to read the product card. I went shopping for a lawnmower so I was asking about the difference between the Snappers and Craftsman. All I got was the product information that the guy was reading to me. Ok, fine, now tell me about the weight, deck gauge, turning radius, etc. Oh and the stores I go to do not price match each other. If an item is on sale at one, they will not match it.

As for the Sears website, yeah, it is the Third-world equivalent of Amazon. Very slow, and they are selling stuff from 3rd parties that you never heard of. If I need tools I usually go to Craftsman.com, cuts out most of the trash.

*Ok, when I say unknowledgeable, it is not that I am expecting someone with an advanced degree in engineering. I just want someone to know where the 2x3s are.

 

[porcupine73]

I rank them pretty much that same way, Lowes, Home Depot, then Sears.

Lowes in-store they seem pretty attentive and knowledgeable. Their web site works and is fast.

Home Depot, in-store it seems difficult these days to find someone to help you. Often I see employees darting about quickly but they don't ask if you need help. Home Depot's web site is slow and a bit clunky. I tried four times last year to order a snowblower from their website, and every time the order got cancelled, but they couldn't quite help me out as to why.

Sears I can't say much about the in-store as I haven't shopped in store there in a few years since I'm usually more getting electrical wire and hardware related stuff. The web site is kind of slow and clunky. What it appears to me they did, is they already had an internal EAM/CSM package of some sort, I think maybe by IBM, and then they tried to use some package that interfaces or makes that into a website, and that was not a good choice.

 

[jmlcolorado]

Very interesting thread here.
As a general contractor, I spend 90% of my time in home depot. Though the girlfriend wonders why I never take the assistance if it's ever asked. Actually, anytime I go in the store with friends, I know what I'm looking for, so I wonder to the area. Meanwhile, the friends are asking for help and I usually end up educating the employee on whatever it is I'm buying at the time.
My friend worked for an electrician for a period of time, so he had SOME knowledge. But rather then utilizing his knowledge, they put him in the GARDEN dept!!!
If I can't figure out what I need by myself, I don't get it cause I obviously have the same amount of knowledge as their employees
I really dont spend much time in lowes as there are 50%less lowes then HD
around here but my experience there is similar to lowes.
Sears stores are just weird to me. I feel like I should go pick up some a tv, some slippers, a couple new shirts and a fridge at the same time I'm getting my fridge.

It would be really nice if they made a dedicated tool/parts stores.

I don't hardly ever shop online at any of these, eBay and amazon are my online shopping stores

 

[soob]

All of their websites are screwed up. It's almost 2012 and you don't have a decent search function?

Worst of all is home depot, which is buggy with IE 8, the most popular web browser there is. It freezes up IE for ten seconds every time it loads a page. They even have that browser on the computer in the store, making their website painful to use on their own consoles!

Picking up in store from Sears online orders takes forever. I got carpet installed from Lowes once and their installers were butchers. They never really made it right.

And they all have huge markups.

 

[CoryZ]

Any store with Fleet & Farm in some combination gets my business first.

Home Depot is in walking distance and isn't too bad. They have a good manager who made things right for me when an online order/local pickup went wrong. I did learn to never ask the staff questions though.

Lowe's is far enough away that we never go locally. They're close to the in-laws though, so we'll shop them sometimes.

Regular hardware stores with good customer service are still on my list for fiddly bits and oddball items that the big boxes don't carry.

Sears gets my business when SWMBO drags me to the mall! Their website is just painful.