Home Depot...WTF?

bighammer

Quality is remebered long after price is forgotten -

willworkforbeer

WalMart has gotten into real estate, just commercial for now
http://www.walmartrealty.com/

silvertree

Welcome to the future. This has been coming for a long time and its partly our fault.
Our business has its share of hacks and pretenders and that makes it easy for the box stores to compete. We won't go away and neither will they. This is how we ended up with 3 car companies making so so cars and large telecoms giving us the business.

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BobsLandscaping

I'd like to be a Home Depot contractor just for the leads. Hell if HD honestly charges 30% I could easily beat that. John Deere Landscapes financing only charges me 5%, and the nursery has better plants/material at a lower price. I'd write up the proposal with 2 quotes. One for HD financing/materials and another for Deere financing/materials. On a decent size project I could beat HD by a few grand, because there's no way I'd eat 30%. That would be tacked on to the bid. I don't mind kicking Deere 5%, they take care of me.

slowforthecones

Home Depot design or whatever services/goods they sell....... paint/kitchens/floors.... its often sub-standard work done by a HD subcontractor employing illegals/south of the border imported craftsmanship with a shady background (drugs, theft, criminal convictions). I would not want any of these people on my property or in my home. Some home owners don't know any better and think it's a home depot employee actually performing the work. While home depot is a good hardware store for one stop shop for some essential building needs at odd hours of the night and etc, they aren't the place to go to find referrals of skilled tradesmen or quality building services!

stp57

True...and so are misspelled words.
Steve

W-Tinc

Everytime this thread,or a newer one just like it, pops up I read the same thing. No offense to anyone here but in my experience this is not entirely accurate.

Four years ago I was low on money and work, very tired of home shows, advertising, even giving estimates. Decided to try subbing along with whatever referral work fell into my lap. Had never subbed before, so it was a learning experience for me.

After giving a whole lot of small to large companies a try, Home Depot is the best company to sub for in my area. They pay pretty good, great compared to what most of the local guys are offering. They also do a better job of ordering materials and scheduling jobs, and are easier to get along with. I don't hear about taking the good with the bad from HD, I get paid extra for all the bad. This may vary by region and product, but just the way it is where I am.

They do a very good job of taking care of the customer..they make mistakes but the difference I see is they have a very well defined system in place and will keep banging away until the customer is satisfied. I have also had them pay me to fix things that are not really warranty related from jobs installed long ago...not had that with any other company I have subbed for.

As far as the comments about illegals...what a joke...I would love to be taken to a roofing/siding/painting job or even a subdivision being built and not see a flock of illegals. Not sure how someone could say that about any one company with a straight face, in the southeast at least it is the norm. I don't hire them, don't need that much help for window installs.

After trying to deal with alot of independantly owned companies these threads always seem very hypocritical to me, again maybe its just my area.

Just wanted to throw in my two cents. HD commercial over, now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

silvertree

Good one, regardless of opinions expressed a good experience, especially in comparison to how others have treated you is worth hearing about.

The thing I hear that worries me is when someone says "Home Depot", we can beat them on service or quality. Rest assured HD people read this forum and are moving to address those issues where they lack expertise.

We are part of a 300 billion dollar industry, and some powerful forces would like a big chunk of that pie.

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naptown CR

The last part of this is very true indeed. The entire industry has gone through a consolidation of sorts. You can blame the Walt Stoppelworths of the world for this as he was the one that got the big box stores started on installed sales. I personally do not see a let up of this trend in the near future. Lowes and HD are working very hard to garner more market share in installed sales and in some areas are actually improving their client experience.

As time goes on it will become more difficult for the small contractor to compete.

I know I will probably be flamed but I see the writing on the wall. Particularly for those of you who do some of the specialty trades, these are going to be hit hard by the big box stores.

W-Tinc

In the window business the pie is being cut on both sides of the small contractor. Used to be simple to compete with the HD/lowes/sears by having better service at a slightly lower price. Now however we have all the really low budget companies that advertise(heavily) sub $200 prices taking their market share as well.

silvertree

So what are we gonna do?
I think we will all get a share, but which part?

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Minneapolis Remodel Blog
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W-Tinc

I think all you good general remodeling guys will be fine. Things are picking up a little here in Alabama. I have alot of admiration for people who can do alot of different kinds of work well. Plus you can serve the same customer base repeatedly.

I am not that talented, and also am a little tired of home improvement in general. Also tired of paying $700/month for health insurance lol.

What I did is get a part time job with benefits, spiff up my credit, and be very nice to whoever pays me good money to install windows. While trying to make some money in real estate. So far so good, still eating and paying my bills but have a long way to go.

rbsremodeling

Sounds like you need a hug or a hallmark card

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ModernStyle

It would be such an honor to work for Home Depot and get to apply Behr paint.
They advertise a "painter for a day" special for like $400 for 8 hours. My question is wouldnt the guy be a HD employee if he went to a job at a specific time for a set ammount of hours for a set ammount of pay ? If you look up what the IRS considers an employee, those things pretty much sum it up.

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W-Tinc

Cool! I'll send you an email with my address. Its a long drive, think you could bring me a cake too?

leakygoose

Home Depot sucks . A total boycott of this enterprise is getting closer every day.
They are starting to bite the hands that feed it. Whens the bitching going to stop and be replaces with real actions.

Everyone on this forum knows what I'm talking about .

It's not the future of remodeling or new construction ,just a business plan that is wrong and full of greed.We are not a bunch of worker bees but talented trades that need materials to do our work ,not more competition or someone trying to get a cut of the action at our expense.

Miscellaneous ramblings ,but just my thoughts.

W-Tinc

Thats a very good point. I read that laws are gradually changing towards this also, the government doesn't like subs/sub chains..no clue how true it is.

In window installs HD is very safe on this. They dictate what day, but not what times to work. They fire subs whose work or habits they don't like..but don't actually dictate how they want things done, just expect you to know what you are doing. Also unlike alot of companies that supply all materials they only supply the window. I have to buy caulk/coil/expanding foam/fiberglass etc.

Keep in mind too that some products are ran through the actual store, and some are run through the at home services division, much different. These have large office and warehouse locations full of employees that are well trained and run their jobs just like any other large home improvement company.

nEighter

HD put a tile company I know out of business cause the customers would complaine about tile finishes THEY picked out and HD would just "give" them the work for free.. they wanted their name to remain untarnished while SCREWING the tile company over.. no no NO thanks.

BMAN

Ok Here is my plan, I will sign up with the Depot installed services painting installers. Then I will get the leads, sell the jobs at ridiculous prices so the dumb customers can spend the rest of their lives paying for it on Home Depot Credit cards. Then I will go buy one Gallon of each color I need to satisfy buying the product, drive to Sherwin to get it color matched and paint the house for them. Then at least my work will look good and i will make great money on the job because I overbid it to someone who was forced to pay with their depot card!

nEighter

Home depot also carries Glidden.