There's a lot here I agree with, but...

>You go to Home Depot for expertise as much as for parts

Has not been my experience. Ace hardware is a little better, but not much.

I suppose sometimes they get lucky and a knowledgeable retiree is willing to work for those wages.

Expertise at a Home Depot can be problematic. Sometimes you get someone who really knows what they are talking about. Sometimes you get someone who doesn't, but is speaking with authority anyway.

A friend recently told me about a time he sent his wife in to Home Depot with a list of things to get, and she came home with a different set of things that an employee recommended. My friend went back there to raise a stink about being sold the wrong things, found out the employee was a out of work plumber, and that "sharkbite" is great stuff.

"That's funny" I told my friend, "Literally yesterday I was talking with my plumber and he pointed out that I had sharkbite running to my sprinkler system. I told him I didn't know what his opinion of it was, but I didn't love sharkbite, he said he didn't love it either."

Mostly I go to my local hardware store because it's 2 minutes away rather than 15. Lowes is another 5+ minutes further, but it seems to have a lot more choice in some things, and I've had a bad experience with a couple Home Depot employees that I just can't let go of.

Home Depot does seem to have a weird set of things they do stock and don't. Like all their thinset mortar didn't seem to be labeled as modified or unmodified last weekend...

Either way, the fact that you can even have that conversation with a person at the store is a huge difference from the kid who'll read you the card on the display if you ask him about a product at Best Buy.

And yeah, I used sharkbite to book my dishwasher up, but it's definitely on the list of "get that replaced next time a plumber is in the house".

FWIW, my friend is a plumber and he thinks Sharkbite is one of the best things that happened to plumbing. Of course he didn't use it for every job because the cost isn't always justified.

I suck at plumbing. For people like me who do the occasional repair around the house, Sharkbite is a godsend.

... until it isn't. I'm just finishing up a kitchen/dining room remodel due to water damage, so I'm probably gun shy here. :-)

(clarification: Unrelated to sharkbite, but I appreciate the damage water can cause)

Ace Hardware is a cooperative, not a chain, or even a franchise system. As such they vary a lot, and it seems on average they are getting worse.

We used to have a really good Ace chain around here, with a proper hardware section and quality tools. They now only stock super common hardware, not the stuff I'd go to a specialty store for, and a lot of really garbage tools.

And they certainly don't have any experts anymore. you're lucky if somebody's working who knows how to run the key machine (which also no longer requires any skill)

I don't understand why it being a cooperative makes for wide variance in staff quality. Do US Americans not like working in co-ops? What is it about profit sharing that causes the variation, in UK cooperatives seem to be more liberal and offer better working conditions but their recruitment seems pretty much inline with other forms of corporation.

Can you offer any further insight?

Perhaps the demise of this particular store (chain) is orthogonal to their cooperative status but you're assuming a causality?

It's not a cooperative like REI or other much-loved stores are cooperatives. In the case of REI, the end customers are the members. In Ace's case, the store owners are the members.

So in the example of REI, it's a cooperative but there is still a central control and consistency between stores.

Between Ace chains, the only thing common is the word "Ace" and some fraction of Ace-branded products in the store. Some chains have tons of them, some have very little. The "Ace cooperative" exerts very little control over the stores. The cooperative is mostly about branding, not about products or quality.

I gave up on Ace like a decade ago... my local Fred Meyer (Kroger) has a better hardware section than my local Ace.

I don't really have any loyalty to Home Depot vs. Lowe's vs. a local mom and pop, just have what I need when I need it.

> > You go to Home Depot for expertise as much as for parts

> Has not been my experience. Ace hardware is a little better, but not much.

Most Home Depot employees at my local store were very knowledgeable for a while, but the construction market is so crazy here (Colorado) that anyone with that knowledge can make at least double what Home Depot will offer.

That said, my local store still does have a few knowledgeable people, but they tend to work morning shifts. I've learned to drop in before work if I have any DIY-type questions.

My strategy is to look for the people working there around retirement age. A lot of times they have been tradesman or contractors, and are working part time for some extra money.

Must be a regional thing. The guys at my local Home Depot know their crap. They're not the confused teenagers that run most local big box stores.

for what it's worth, OSH seems to be the happy medium for me.

I'd first ask on the relevant StackExchange site than ask the salesman. At least I'd probably get more than one opinion.

I may be in the minority for now, but I doubt they can live off that kind of 15m "consultations" when people are willing to do it for free online.

> Toys r us or best buy carry bad products and are staffed by the lowest bidder. They offer no value over Amazon, so Amazon makes them worthless.

I would think that instant gratification is of high value when shopping for toys with a child.

Toys R Us is a place to look at toys mainly though IMO. They're all boxed with wire and plastic holding them in place. Lots of expensive stuff in plastic with a "try me" button. Not really instant gratification like a traditional toy store (Hamleys, say) where you can play with lots of the toys before you choose.