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Fun with Home Depot online ordering

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5K views 63 replies 33 participants last post by  timbit2006 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Check out this wild ride I had ordering online with Home Depot!
My town has no good outlet for decent bandsaw blades, save if I go to Chattanooga Woodcraft and shell out the big bucks. So I hopped online to find some decent, not great, 1/8" blades to do a little design work on some new bandsaw boxes to compliment my guitar business.
Hopped online at Homedepot.com. Found a Steel City 1/8" blade, 93 1/2", for a pretty reasonable price. Looks good, decent reviews, ordered 4, put them on my HD card. Free shipping.
Three days later, I see a Priority UPS box on my stoop. Blades already! Great!

Open the box, only one blade, and a packing slip with a 1 written in the shipped column, and a 0 written in the backordered column. What?
Called the handy-dandy 1-800 number on the picklist, got a nice lady with an India accent. Explained to her the problem, she puts me on hold for a full two minutes…..........Comes back, says so sorry, the remaining blades will take one to two weeks to arrive, mistake orders get put to the back of the line? I say OK, I got one blade, I can hold on. Thanks all around, blah, blah.

Very next day, another Priority UPS box on my stoop. Open it up, three more blades, zero paperwork. I think WOW, what great service!

About 7 days later, I get an e-mail from Home Depot saying they cannot fill the order, and I should take the one blade and paperwork to my local HD for a full refund and they will take the one blade back. At this point, I could have taken the one blade back to HD with the paperwork, got my account credited, and walked away with three blades still in my bandsaw cabinet. But that would be outright theft. Not made that way. I say nonsense, I have the four blades, they charged me for four, we're jake. Delete the e-mail.

7 days later, I get one of those "Rate your experience" e-mails with HD. OK, I will. The site is hard to use, divided up into "tabs", one for product discussion, one for shipping and delivery, one I don't even remember what it said. I put my comments on this silly experience in the Shipping tab, but when I preview the review, it will only let me see the Product tab. So I cut and paste the comments from the Shipping tab into the Product tab, and I e-mail it back.

Two days later, I get a "Your review was rejected" e-mail, with condesening instructions. Dear Paul, what you need to do is to post only product information into the product tab, and post your shipping experience into the shipping tab. We will not post shipping information into the product tabs, and you need to rewrite, blah, blah, blah, (I hit the delete key and decided I could reach more relevant people here)

This is a so called Six Sigma company? I mean, I like to roam my local HD cause no one is hardly ever in there, (our local Lowes is king here), and our HD seems to be one of those end-of-the-supply-chain stores that get the leftover specials. I caught a beautiful 12 gallon wet vac with a detachable blower close-out on sale for $49.00. With my Military Discount, I got it for $45. It's a great Rigid, and just like the others I paid lots more for save it had one or two less attachments. One day I walked in with my wife and she noticed an eight piece router bit set, 1/4", for $5.00! Bought one of those…On the other hand, they have so many Diablo sanding disc packs there is dust all over the packs.
And online? They seem dazed and confused…...
Just thought the whole thing was kind of good for a laugh!
 
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#5 ·
Uhh, Paul??? I worry about fellas who call a vacuum "beautiful". :)
You're absolutely correct about some of the HD experiences. Lowe's is kickin' some major butt here in the Tupeol area. High explosives in HD wouldn't hurt anything but spiders.
Bill (and I also have a Ridgid vac)
 
#7 · (Edited by Moderator)
Awww, c'mon, Bill. Can't you find beauty in a wonderful orange and black vacuum cleaner that looks a little bit like a squat R2D2? You almost feel sorry for it. I keep it right under the bench I work at most, always ready for action! Right next to the little refridgerator that keeps my beer and Powerade cold! (Mostly beer)
 
#9 ·
Around here HD is King and Lowe's is a pain… funny how it flip-flops depending on the locality.

I tried ordering from their websites (HD and Lowes) and it's always been obnoxious. Now, if I need something not in the store, I order from a direct supplier.. generally cheaper and more specialty.
 
#10 ·
I am not a big HD fan, especially online. I was recented down in Bellingham WA and stopped by after having seen some great stuff online that I knew was not available in Canada. They had almost none of it at their store. Bummer.

Years ago I discovered that if you are foolish enough to go to the checkout with something that does not have a barcode on it, you had best have agood book to read. You'll be there a while !

But I will grant that HD usually has a lot of choice, better than their nearest rival here on Vancouver Island.

I have bought a lot of bandsaw blades from http://www.spectrumsupply.com/. They don't have small carbide blades but the bimetal ones are also very ggod.
 
#11 ·
While I do like Lowe's better, I still go to HD because they are cheaper. And I did get an awesome deal on a Rigid Planer. so I always go back there and wonder the isles for close outs. You just never know what you going to find. Lowe's has a better selection of S4S wood but HD does have Maple, and as a matter of Fact I found some really good S4S Curly Maple in the bin and scarfed that up big time.
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
Try dealing with HD online in Alaska. The vast majority of their online listings include the advisory, "This item cannot be shipped to the following state(s): AK,HI" and the PC 4216 dovetail jig I recently purchased was no exception. While Lowe's has a comparatively friendly special order process, with HD, I had to go to a local customer service desk, so they could call a customer service desk in the Lower 48 who would ship the item to a distribution center in Washington state, who would then ship the item to my local store. They didn't charge me anything for shipping but at the time of purchase, the store in the Lower 48 charged their sales tax, which was then credited back to me when the item was received here. All of this took almost three weeks, two phone calls to the Lower 48, the advice of an HD manager, and two trips to my local HD.
 
#13 ·
PetersCreek, which HD do you go to ? I live pretty close to the one in Wasilla, but your right I don't think i would ever order online with anyone up here, most of the time is more expensive than what your buying LOL. And SBS forget about it those people have next to nothing in there stores and too bad too, I would rather support local businesses.
 
#15 · (Edited by Moderator)
around these parts…. HD still has the upper hand.

Lowes is quite a bit more expensive.

I actually prefer NOT having dozens of employees around asking if they can help me.

Half the time, they don't really know so much about the products, so I'd rather just figure it out on my own without a lot of people interupting me.

as far as lumber goes….

I go to HD when I need a couple 2Xs or deck screws, etc…

But on my last two construction projects, I faxed the HD contractor my material list to see if they would be competitive…... NOT EVEN CLOSE!!! I got much better pricing from the "real" lumber yards.

I will say this…. I've had VERY good luck with Baehr paints and exterior stains…. and Consumer's Reports rates them very high.
 
#16 ·
Hi Paul,

I apologize that you encountered several hurdles with your online experience. I would like to hear more about your experience and understand what went wrong. We are continuosly listening to our customers and making improvements to our site and service to better serve your needs. Would you mind emailing me your order details so I can review the issues with shipping and receipt? I look forward to hearing from you and I hope that you will consider giving us another shot! We truly appreciate your business and care about your experience.

Thank you,
Lyndsey Sims
Resolutions Manager, Homedepot.com
Lyndsey_Sims@homedepot.com
 
#17 ·
Now look at that , Lyndsey joined us just to help you out !!
How many other companies are lurking in the bushes , waiting to hear something bad about their business ?
Maybe you'll get rewarded for your input !
 
#18 · (Edited by Moderator)
Keep us posted as to how this works out. HD used to be my go to big box but for the last year the employees (if you can find one that speaks English) just don't seem interested in helping you. I bought my Ridgid jointer there 3 years ago and talked to the manager about their not stocking blades for it. He agreed that was dumb and promised they would stock them. 3 years and still waiting…....
 
#19 ·
Tennessee, one of our local HD's had that same special awhile back on the Ridgid vac. It was a good deal, I thought about buying a couple of them.

I have a love/hate relationship with HD. On the one hand I live near an extremely busy HD. It's nuts in there all the time. I love that it's just a mile away and open until 10PM. I hate fighting my way in and out of the store, you can't find any help and the isles are clogged with the 8 million other people shopping there at the same time.

Conversely, the next closest HD, about 5 miles away, is a ghost town, always. It is never busy, I get asked multiple times if I need help and I can literally park in the spot closest to the door 9 out of 10 times. I have taken to calling it "Richard's Private HD".

My biggest pet peeve with both Lowes and HD is the quality of the lumber. It is not uncommon for me to spend an hour board sorting to find pieces that are acceptable. Unfortunately, the lumberyards around here are not even reasonably competitive, so I only buy from them when I need to.
 
#20 ·
I HATE home depot, except for one. There are several either near me or my work (about 7 in total), and they are all the same. Employees more interested in each others personal lives than customer service, the stores are a mess, each store is very large and there is no consistency in the lay out so finding things is tough. and nothing is marked well.

There is one home depot near me that is the complete opposite. The employees there are the friendliest and most helpful (with out being overbearing) of ANY retail store i have ever visited. That general manager is doing something right. That is the only Home Depot on the planet I will step foot in. I worked in big box stores during college at a supervisory level. Having a staff like the one in this store takes a lot of talent
 
#21 ·
I've ordered a couple of things from HD website, and didn't have problems like the OP. I do find it awkward to navigate the site, however, and rarely bother with the website because it's difficult to navigate. The reason I ordered from the website is that I had a gift card and wanted a tool, but the selection in the store is…anemic. Mostly, I can get the same thing from another online retailer for less money, with free shipping, and and easier on-line experience.
 
#22 · (Edited by Moderator)
Interesting to hear the orange vs. blue debate. Around here, Lowe's typically gets my nod. A couple of years ago, I was convinced that you could go postal in the HD and never hit an employee. My time is money and all I want is to be able to find stuff quickly and get an occasional product question answered. What I do hate is people who work in a department that really have no idea of what's going on. Perhaps worse than saying, "I am sorry, I don't know." is to get wrong advice.

I was at a family wedding last night and was talking to my brother who lives in Missouri. He said Lowe's used to be the only store in town. Recently, Menard's opened a store and practically overnight Lowe's has become a ghost town and Menard's is standing room only. He said that Lowe's customer service had become the pits and people were more than happy to have an alternative.

Any of these would be preferable to Sears. The final straw for me was on my last trip where I encountered
1. Employees walking the other way and into the back room when they saw me coming.
2. A grunt and a point by a cashier, "That would be in one of those aisles over there." (pointing to half the department)
3. An "I don't know what size fits your tool, you'll just have to look at the labels." Then he disappeared.
4. Three guys leaning on a lawn mower talking to each other while I was leaving, "I don't really know the problem
is, people just don't seem to be shopping here any more," one said to the others.
5. A complaint letter to the store manager listing the above went completely unacknowledged.
 
#23 ·
I literally decided on Friday that I'll never shop on-line with HD again. The last two orders I received were packaged so poorly that it's amazing no damage had occurred in shipping.

I received my new Makita jig saw on Friday in a box at least 5 times as big as the case. The packing materials were two twisted pieces of brown Kraft paper - no joke. That case was bouncing around in that box all over the place. If I get time, I'll post pictures. Luckily the Makita case was well designed and the saw was not damaged.
 
#24 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hey Joe ,
I know you're not talking about the Westfield store as being the best one locally, so give me a clue which one is.
I've had the best luck at the W.Springfield store , and also Chicopee wasn't bad at the time.
Even went as far as the Hadley location once to get something that none of the locals had. The saddest trip was when I had to go to Connecticut to get all of the items that were on sale in one place : (
Sad that I have to leave town in order to get supplies and service…the local store is less than 4 miles from me !
 
#25 ·
I live right in the middle of the westfield and west springfiied stores. I would prefer to go to Westfied because the west side store is on the busiest road in the busiest shopping plaza in the area, but the westfield store s awful. I hate the Chicopee store, and the Wilbraham one is worse than (b)lowes - if you can believe that. I also work in Natick MA. The home depot there suffers from a problem someone else mentioned - most employees are non-native English speakers and either they have no clue what I am saying, or I have no clue what they are saying. There is a very large Brazilian presence in Framingham. While friendly, attentive and professional, there is a difinitive language barrier, and I work for a multinational company who's HQ is in South Africa. I am well accustomed to language barriers and I still have a hard time. I would expect that in a Walmart or a fast food joint, but in a reputable chain selling a lot of very big ticket items in one of the top 5 wealthiest towns in the state? Really Home Depot?
The West Springfield home depot consistently provides the best customer service I have ever had at any retail location, period . It suffers from the same product quality woes that other home depots do, and they are a busy store so they are often out of stock on the loss leaders and big sale items, but it is an absolute pleasure shopping there. Read my table saw review for a good example.

I will say as far as chains go, I would rather go without that go to Lowes. I hate everything about that store and chain.
 
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