Home Depot - All Sales Are Final
May 10th, 2008 by FuzzTagged as: beaver dam, fond du lac, home depot, store closings, west bend.
Of course you have heard by now that the Home Depot is closing three stores in Southeastern Wisconsin. Of the stores are two near my home — Home Depot, Beaver Dam and Home Depot, Fond du Lac.
Before my kitchen-remodeling project, I bought some tiles from the Beaver Dam store. Luckily, I purchased the rest of my supplies from Home Depot or Menards in West Bend. Today, when I went to take back the extra tiles that I had, the lady at the Home Depot in West Bend said, “sorry, sir, all sales from Beaver Dam or Fond du Lac’s stores are final.”
WTF? It’s a national chain store that is corporately owned. What’s the difference if I bring back a box of tiles that it stocks at every single Home Depot store?
Since I’m sure I’ll end up buying from The Home Depot again, I’ll simply return the tiles without my receipt, so as to get in-store credit. It’s just ridiculous, though, that I have to jump through hoops to get $6.97 back.
On another note, I think that it’s completely ridiculous that The Home Depot will come in to a town, build these sprawling stores on vacant land, and then close up shop within three years. All while vowing to open 36 new stores in the U.S. this year. How about making your other stores profitable before building new ones?
May 11th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Agreed on the ridiculousness of trying to return those tiles!
And on your final comment about building/closing and re-building…sounds a little like a Wal-Mart diatribe. What are your feelings on Wal-Mart doing the same thing?
May 11th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I guess I didn’t realize that Wal*Mart closed that many stores?
May 12th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Problem is h-d can’t make a profit at the stores they are closing. I don’t have the answers, but, companies need to close stores from time to time. We just had to do it, first time in our history we have closed a store, but it had to be done.
If the community can’t support the store why should it remain open at a loss? They have to answer to their stock holders in the end so they need to keep the company profitable no?
May 12th, 2008 at 11:28 am
The “housing crunch” isn’t going to last forever, so I don’t think that slow sales would be a terminal problem for them. These stores probably haven’t even been around for three years yet - and they were built right at the start of the “crunch.” I understand your point about shareholders, but I wonder what this will do to sales at surrounding HD stores with customers knowing that their local store could be next.
I’m not saying that they have to stick around forever hoping to turn a profit, but five-to-seven years isn’t too much to ask. Sometimes you have to think about both the shareholders AND the stakeholders.
Now there will be big, ugly, new, orange buildings rotting in two prime locations. There aren’t many companies that are going to be able to go into those buildings. Hopefully Beaver Dam and Fond du Lac have demolition clauses in their contracts with HD so that they have to tear down the locations if they can’t be leased out.