Who is 3% of HDs transactions but 30% of their business?

so.. 3% of their transactions make up a 1/3 of their revenue huh? They need to be more contractor friendly is all I can say. They need to give us a discount and offer some better services and I would use them more. Funny. I just went into a lumber yard that snubbed me not 3 yrs ago yesterday.. not only did I get GREAT treatment, but I also was told they would help me now, when they wouldn't let me open an account a couple years ago because "they had bigger fish to fry" in their words Gotta love the housing bust.

We HD's bid room service for wire and major purchases. They usually give a discount over their instore price and its delivered. Plus, we use a HD rewards. Unfortunately, they are getting ride of the HD rewards card. For everyday service work, we use HD, Lowes, and even Ace if we need a part we do not commonly stock.

HD not for me

The only thing I buy from HD are the items that come off the shelf, in to the cart and check out without asking for help.
If I buy a shower door, I get it from the plumbing supply house.
If I but paint, I go to SW or Duron.
If I buy lumber, it's from the lumber yard.
I have tried to buy from HD but for me the wheels stop rolling when I ask for help at HD.
and it' good to know that my 30% is spent else ware.:clap:

Wow, I started a thread in the electrician forum a day or so ago about the very same issue.
For me, HD is always a couple minutes away from my jobsites, the company that starts with M at least doesn't compete with us, but carries brand names for the most part that are of little value unless you want to grocery shop during parts runs, and the "L" I have not yet ever visited.
My supply house (electrical) is awesome, and I feel guilty buying things from HD but you know how it is. They are only a mile down the street and the supply house trip will take about an hour.
The thread I started in the electrical forum was to ask what type of threshold you guys might have to justify the longer trip to the supply house who has saved every one of us when we needed a hard to find part. Mine is currently $200 in estimated materials.

I usually like to help out the smaller local supply/lumber yards. But when I'm in a hurry and can't stand around waiting forever for a sales guy to ring me up, then go out to the yard and wait for some kid to get my order together, then load it on the truck, I go to HD. Another problem I have with the local lumber yards is that since I'm not a "big" business and I dont give them 100k of sales a year they seem to be kinda rude, at least some of the yards in the area.

WilsonRMDL said:

I usually like to help out the smaller local supply/lumber yards. But when I'm in a hurry and can't stand around waiting forever for a sales guy to ring me up, then go out to the yard and wait for some kid to get my order together, then load it on the truck, I go to HD. Another problem I have with the local lumber yards is that since I'm not a "big" business and I dont give them 100k of sales a year they seem to be kinda rude, at least some of the yards in the area.

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:notworthy is why I posted the comment above.

WilsonRMDL said:

Another problem I have with the local lumber yards is that since I'm not a "big" business and I dont give them 100k of sales a year they seem to be kinda rude, at least some of the yards in the area.

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It's hard to imagine that after 10 years of utter decimation of the local lumber yards by the big boxes, and not to mention this current economic climate that lumber yards are still pulling that sh*t.:thumbdown

Yea I don't like most of the real lumber yards here because they don't want much to do with us as we are still small. The thing is the yards that have jacked me over will not get my business again... Can't wait till they call someday when we are bigger and I can tell them off.

Now if I walk into the HD that I shop at 70% of the staff know me by name and they know what I do. We talk about tools and toys. I can call them even from another store and they will look up SKUs for me and tell me what store has what I need. Do I think they need to offer us a discount... YES as far as customer service goes... I get way better service at HD than I do at the local lumber yards.

My lumber yard is great. They have a building were all the roofing supplies are stored. I just pull in there with my helper load what i need and call them on my way out and they write the ticket. Never even have to go into the store. All my shingles are brought up on a lift within 15 min of a phone call.

I use lowes quite often but it's a matter of convenience and speed. My local lumber yard is awesome-I know the people, they have friendly staff but the time issue of sales/payment and driving into the yard hoping one of the loaders sees me drive back. on occasion, I've loaded my own stuff because no one came to help. I try not to go to the HD in my area b/c of the lack of friendly faces, all though this has improved slightly in the last year or two.

Lumber = We buy from the Lumber Yards.
Small incidentals, and quick pick-up things = Home Depot. The workers have HD Commercial account cards, so that they can run-out and buy anything they are short on, or need, to keep things moving.

Grabbing some things at HD used to be fast, in and out. Not anymore.

They cut their Pro-Desk staff down to nothing. Skeleton crew, sometimes a "ghost" crew there (no-one to be found).

Funny, how if their contractor sales were so important to them, that they don't have the staff support to show that.

Thewoodman said:

When the day comes that Home Depot will give me a construction pencil for free is the day they will get more of my business. It is the simple things in life that matter.

Mark

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They once gave me a big 2"x3" note pad with about 20 pages in it. I was so impressed by there carring and toughtfulness.

Ohmy said:

We HD's bid room service for wire and major purchases. They usually give a discount over their instore price and its delivered. Plus, we use a HD rewards. Unfortunately, they are getting ride of the HD rewards card. For everyday service work, we use HD, Lowes, and even Ace if we need a part we do not commonly stock.

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used home depot bid room for about 3,000 $ of lumber and they came back and said i could save 18 bucks with bid room ,no thanks saved over 800 dollars going to local lumber yard