Hardware store Horror stories....Where not to shop.

[SweetLilRachy00]

Not chicken related, but worth a post anyhow:

WALMART!!!! While I have never venting this issue here, I haven't been to a walmart in YEARS! I can't stand bad customer service, people that don't give a poop and people that don't know if you carry toilet paper or not! Come on, learn what you're working with, I'm not the first and only person that is going to ask the question.

Oh and not to mention the OTHER people that are shopping there and their entire family that doesn't move out of the isle as you're pulling a screaming child behind you. NOT FUN, have I mentioned that I hate walmart?

OK, chicken store by me doesn't take CC, this bugs me. It's 2008, get a darn CC machine!!!!!!! You sell WAY MORE stuff to people with bank cards and CCs duh! Figure it out! Ok, so there's a small fee, give it up tax it! I dont' care, get the machine!

Well, that's my rant and I'm sticking to it!

Weeeewh, glad I got that off my chest!

 

[newnanchic]

I use my cc for everything!!! I want my free sky miles and I just don't carry that much cash anymore so one day I ordered apizza to be pick up and guess what no cc machine o.k. people this is 2008 gat that machine ... and on the chicken note my hubby went to Tractor Supply in Carrollton on Wed. to look for me some RIR babies and when he ask what kind of chickens they were he was told "babies" duh... any no he did not buy any he did buy some chic starter food because he knew I was gonna get some babies from somewhere this week and when we opened it ... It has molded food in the bag. Of course it is 30 miles back to the feed store so we had to just pick some out to give them until we can get back to TS. That is my story!!!

 

[Blisschick]

As a small business, I have to defend not having a CC machine, although you are right about customers buying more at a place that has one. The CC machines are actually quite expenisive, so if you don't have the money to outright buy one (which we did *ouch*) you have to lease it. Then they charge you a surcharge for every transaction on it, and we're not talking a few cents, we're talking .25 +2% of every sale. You also get charged a fee for the types of transactions you process--checks, then another for CCs. THEN they charge you a monthly fee for being hooked up to their network. They're worse than the phone company!

.

 

[sweetshoplady]

I accept credit cards as people do spend more. Blisschick, there are a lot of cc merchants out there, I made payments for my machine. But don't feel bad, my grandma never took credit cards at her business (a hotel). Now my uncle is running it and he does.

As far as customer service, if a customer calls ahead, I will wait for them to get there. If they are going to arrive even 1/2 hour after I close. I figure the best thing I can do is give them the best service I can.

Funniest hardware story was at HD, where the guy told me 1 x 4s would be strong enough for a top rail for my horses. My QH decided that what was really fun to do was to break them and then move on to the next one to break that one. A sheriff asked me if I had been hit by vandals. I said yes, and pointed to my Jake (QH), he did it. I watched him do this.

My old time local hardware store the people are usually knowledgeable. (Now Ace) but run by the same people.

My feed store is great, as long as I get the owner or her husband or their son. Great help. And they deliver.

 

[flakey chick]

Home Depot is the worst. Had trouble finding some stuff that should have been in the garden department (I forget what). When we finally tracked some help they told us oh, thats in the parking lot. Sure enough it was stacked in the parking lot and soaking wet.

It's hard to get around the lot because all the merchandise they keep there. They even kept the fire lanes blocked with merchandise. The county finded them $500/day over the practice.

HD basically told the county to go swing and refused to pay. Then they wanted to build at a new location. They wanted the county to drastically change restrictions for them based on some "assurances". How the heck can you take the "assurances" of a company with such bad faith.

 

[ams3651]

Just to add what i said about Home Depot (because Im hearing alot about them!) here its right across the street from Lowes. And Im the kind of person who never wants to pay to much so I compare and never fail HD has the same thing, sometimes even the same brand, for more money. I dont even bother looking there anymore.

 

[Cara]

I gave up on Home Depot while building my first chicken coop. I didn't know what kind of saw I needed for wood so I asked, and my bf/now husband was nearly peeing himself laughing when he came over to see me trying to cut wood with a junior hacksaw. The next day I went in to buy some more wood and found out that they would cut it to size, which was a lot more preferable than the hacksaw, so waited an hour for someone to help me despite several promises that an assistant was on their way. Finally someone came along, and when I got home he had cut all my pieces of wood different lengths.

 

[Rte.66_chicks]

In defense of ONE individual working at our local HD: She is a middle school teacher at the same school as I, with HD as a second job and is also in the Nat. Guard. If she sees us in there she comes over, even if it's not the department she's currently in, to see if we need help. She ALWAYS knows where things are, and if she doesn't know the info we're needing, she can usually hook us up with someone who does. She really seems to be the exception, though. Right now she's deployed (doing local training, not overseas), so we really miss her at school and at HD.

If we really need good info, we go to our local Tru-Value, owned by the same family for decades. And many times, though they are a much smaller store, they have just what we need and at a better price.

 

[redoak]

Lowes and Home Depot sell some stuff below cost to lure you in (ex. 40LB bag of garden soil for 99 cents and it costs them $1.07) and they figure you'll buy some fertilizer, pots, etc. The accessories they sell are often a bit more expensive then their small competitors (Tru-Value). But most people assume they are cheaper on all items not just the stuff they mark down. We just got a pallet of OSB for $5.65 per sheet, and the rest of the materials we'll buy from a local lumberyard.

My horror story......... I've been loading heavy stuff from HD and I've had 2 HD employees start to walk down the aisle I'm in, only to see me loading something heavy and they both did a 180 and walked out of the aisle.

 

[AussieSharon]

Yesterday I went to Southern States and bought 4 50 lb bags of chicken feed and 2 large bags of potting soil. A male employee was nice enough to watch me load it all into my cart ( with my 4 year old helping ) then after I was done tell me he was going to offer to help but I looked like I had it under control.

Evidently I must have looked like I had it under control because after I checked out nobody was around to help me unload it into my truck. Customer service is fast becoming a thing of the past.