The death of a Depot

For as long as I can remember I have shopped at Home Depot. I have always been drawn into it's orange clad walls, a home improvement euphoria. I don't remember if it was this love for Home Depot that I found my favorite color being orange, or if I was originally drawn to home improvement giant due to my favorite color. Which came first the chicken or the egg? There were times when a certain product or situation would dictate that I must grace a Lowe's instead. The whole experience felt so foreign, I could not seem to figure out where things were, even though I was very familiar with Home Depot. The tools were all an odd Kobalt blue color, even though everything I know tells me that tools are meant to be orange. Even the checkout process was weird, on the credit card screen where at Home Depot the accept box is located at Lowe's is where the cancel button is. So you can imagine how many times out of habit I canceled my transaction, only to find myself going through the process again more slowly and paying closer attention. Yes In those days I never liked going to Lowe's for any reason and I felt more at Home in the Depot.

When I started my business, Blue Toolbelt (bluetoolbelt.com) a little over 2 years ago, I found myself in a perfect storm. Most of my customers were on Tunnel Road, I had no inventory of parts on hand requiring multiple trips to the store each day, and rapidly rising gas prices forced me to shop at Lowe's; due to it's location on a daily basis.
Soon it felt more normal to shop there, I began to learn what brand names they carried and where things were located through out the store. I actually became such a regular there that many of the employees knew me and would smile and wave as they saw me. Some would comment I see you here everyday, and I would usually reply "yes this is my third trip here today." It soon became that when situations would arise that would require me to shop at Home Depot, that I began to feel that out of place feeling that have previously existed in Lowe's. I know it's all in what you get used to will give you that reassuring and comfortable feeling.

I have said all this to say that over the past year or so I have heard how Home Depot is losing footing in the home improvement warehouse market, that it's sales are down by much larger margins than that of Lowe's. I know it's all because of the mass amounts of finances that I have transferred over from one store to the other that has made all the difference, Yea right! I did however wonder what had made the difference. because I had loved Home Depot and had been so loyal for so many years. I thought even though the location had been all the difference for me, it would have been just the opposite for a lot of people. Being that I don't shop there on a regular basis anymore I really have no idea what has caused the obvious demise of this once untouchable giant.

In the last two or three months circumstances has put me in Home Depot on a more regular basis than before. I have noticed some very disturbing changes. During my most recent trips, I have noticed what seems like double the employees, with many of them standing in the center isle, greeting you with "can I help you find something?" That is not normally a bad thing except when it happens 3 times while I'm only trying to get to the isle where the drill bit is that I need. As soon as I walk up to the drill bit rack I breath a sigh of relief that I have survived the gauntlet of over anxious employees and just as my eyes begin to browse for the bit I need, I hear"Sir, what bit can I help you find today!" It actually took me longer to tell him what bit I needed and what I was using it for then it would have for me to just grab it myself. Just the other day, the Beir paint rep for Home Depot personally submitted an order for me to pick up almost $600.00 worth of paint for a big job I had. He told me it would be ready to pick it up on Monday morning. I spent an hour and a half on Monday gonig back and forth to the customer service desk, the paint department, and making numerous phone calls trying to locate my order. It was eventually found and of course had not been started, and to make it worse the did not even have enough of the needed base colors to produce only half of my order, which forced me return the next day to pick up the rest. While I was waiting for my order to be mixed by employees that were obviously disoriented to the paint department, and with no one clearly leading the operation, I decided to walk around and take my eyes off of what was clearly a chaotic situation. While I was leisurely strolling with no real clear need for anything but only to kill some time, I was forced back to the paint department by neurotic employees, which seemed to me to be getting a bonus for saying "what can I help you find today!" I could go on with at least two or three more stories of horrible service, I have personally received recently.

I find it interesting that Home Depot has decided to focus on an obnoxious campaign to improve their image, but in my opinion they are missing the mark completely. I feel like their customer service is going down the drain while they superficially try to appear helpful put way more staff out on the floor to intentionally irritate you. Lowe's on the other hand seems to me to be helpful when you need them and quick to react when you need them, and all around seem to have it together better. It is quite a sad sight to see how pitiful Home Depot has become after having such a grand status in my world just a few years prior. I'm not saying Home Depot is headed for bankruptcy, but i guess if it keeps heading in the same direction there is always that possibility. This is only my observations in one Home Depot store so it does not hold merit for all their stores.

Until next time...