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Brian Henderson
04-18-2018, 7:45 PM
I really hate it when the online inventories at stores are so absurdly off that you make a trip to get something, only to find they never had it in the first place. So I needed to get a concrete mixing tub, I get on Lowes' website and it says they have 39 in stock in a certain aisle and bin. So off I go to Lowes and... not only do they have none, the spot where they're supposed to be is filled with something else entirely. I ask the guys at the commercial register and they're saying "I don't know the last time we had any of those, we've had concrete footers sitting right there for years."

So I run across the street to Home Depot because their website says they have 3. The shelf is empty. They don't know why their count is off either. Yes, it is possible that someone bought all of them since the counts were updated, but we know that nobody bought 39 of them today at Lowes and I kind of doubt they bought 3 of them at Home Depot. There's another store about 5 miles away that is supposed to have 50 of them. I guess I'll have to try there.

Bruce Wrenn
04-18-2018, 9:09 PM
Have the store you are in contact other store to verify inventory before driving over. Be sure and get the name of the person who does the checking. When Lowes got rid of the Biesemeyer fences for $70, a near by store showed two had been sold and the third wasn't any where to be found. Wife and I went down, walked to end of insulation aisle, and on top stock was a box with BIESEMEYER written on it. Hardware guy couldn't believe me when I said I had come to buy their remaining fence, as it had been missing for several weeks. Showed him where it was, just like plan a gram said it should be. Very glad he couldn't read he plan a gram.

Brian Henderson
04-18-2018, 9:19 PM
I'll call the store directly before I go. It isn't far away, but this store and the next store along both say they have a ton of them in stock. I'll believe it when I see it.

Dave Lehnert
04-18-2018, 9:25 PM
I worked in retail for 25 years.
My guess is when the store did inventory, The employee from the inventory company scanned the shelf label, then counted whatever was in that spot. In your case concrete footers. There should be some kind of safeguard in their system to catch mistakes like that. We got a report at our company that listed items showing no sales for the week.
Possible someone put them out someplace crazy in the store like outdoor garden. Thought they were pond liners or ???????
My local lowe's now has an on-line pickup right by the front door. I can order online then drive to the store and get it once they confirm it is in stock.

Lee Schierer
04-18-2018, 9:32 PM
I've had mixed results using the various websites where you can see if the store actually has one or not. Many of the big box stores only do inventory once a year and the farther you get from that inventory, the less accurate their online information gets. This is even true if you are in the store and need two of something and there is only one on the shelf and you ask an employee to check inventory to see if they have another one.

It is hard to understand because every item leaving the store is supposedly checked and recorded at the register. If their shop lifting is that bad, then they could easily support a full time detective in every store. Yeah, it is hard to believe that 39 people would shop lift cement mixing tubs without being noticed.

Brian Elfert
04-18-2018, 9:38 PM
Lowe's does have online pickup, but verify what you are getting if you place orders with lots of items. I placed four $50 orders the same day last year. They completely screwed up the orders. I ordered a bunch of 2" conduit and half the order was 1-1/2". I also got fittings the wrong size and some of the breakers were GE instead of Siemens along with other mix ups.

I ended up there for more than hour while the customer service manager dumped everything on the counter to inventory it and then waited while someone went back to get the right parts from electrical.

Dave Lehnert
04-18-2018, 9:42 PM
I've had mixed results using the various websites where you can see if the store actually has one or not. Many of the big box stores only do inventory once a year and the farther you get from that inventory, the less accurate their online information gets. This is even true if you are in the store and need two of something and there is only one on the shelf and you ask an employee to check inventory to see if they have another one.

It is hard to understand because every item leaving the store is supposedly checked and recorded at the register. If their shop lifting is that bad, then they could easily support a full time detective in every store. Yeah, it is hard to believe that 39 people would shop lift cement mixing tubs without being noticed.



Unless you have ever worked in a store, you have no idea what theft is like.
I remember once we did an inventory in the electronics department and we were only short $40K. That was considered very good.

Brian Elfert
04-18-2018, 9:45 PM
I used to have to deal with quarterly inventories when I worked at CompUSA. They first had an outside inventory crew go through and count everything overnight on a Saturday night. The counts were compared against the store's inventory to find shortages and overages. The regular employees then came in real early in the morning to recheck everything that didn't match store inventory before the store opened on Sunday morning. This was long before the Internet.

This wouldn't work nearly so well in today's big box stores. I actually bought a concrete mixing tub at Home Depot the other day and they had them in the store just as the website said.

Lee Schierer
04-18-2018, 9:49 PM
Unless you have ever worked in a store, you have no idea what theft is like.
I remember once we did an inventory in the electronics department and we were only $40K. That was considered very good.

Years ago I worked retail and we had several full time employees that wandered the store (K-Mart) and watched for shop lifters. They even had one way windows high up in the warehouse areas where they could sit and watch shoppers. They would catch 2-3 shop lifters every week. It should be even easier with cameras. How does one stick a cement mixing tub in their pockets or under their coat and walk out?

Brian Elfert
04-18-2018, 9:58 PM
Unless you have ever worked in a store, you have no idea what theft is like.
I remember once we did an inventory in the electronics department and we were only $40K. That was considered very good.

I worked at a CompUSA store starting about a month before it opened. The first quarter saw losses of only $10,000 total even with sales of nearly $100,000 per day. The store manager bought all employees a nice leather jacket to celebrate the low theft rate.

The other day I saw a Makita cordless miter saw marked down to $399 from $649 at Home Depot, plus two free batteries. I decided to buy, but the store couldn't find the saw they were supposed to have in stock although they had the batteries. They said another store had like five of the saws in stock. They only had three saws, but no batteries even though inventory showed six of the batteries. The tool employee said they think the batteries were stolen as they had been looking for them for days. He also thought the other saw had been stolen. (How do you steal something in a box more than two feet on each side?) They couldn't get me the free batteries if I bought the saw. He said another store had the batteries, but no saw. I planned to go buy the batteries and then return at the store that had the saw. Luckily, the third store had both the saw and a set of batteries. I went to grab the saw to buy it and it turned out it was locked with a cable! The employee who unlocked it said theft is so bad they had to lock the saw down.

I have no earthly idea why anyone would steal a concrete mixing tub. Too much work to get $12 back on a store credit, and no resale market. It sounds like the Lowes with 39 supposedly in stock just had bad inventory and not really stolen. Nobody is going to reorder something that shows plenty in stock unless someone manually fixes the problem.

Dave Lehnert
04-18-2018, 10:07 PM
Years ago I worked retail and we had several full time employees that wandered the store (K-Mart) and watched for shop lifters. They even had one way windows high up in the warehouse areas where they could sit and watch shoppers. They would catch 2-3 shop lifters every week. It should be even easier with cameras. How does one stick a cement mixing tub in their pockets or under their coat and walk out?

People just walk out with them.
We use to have an small Hardware store here in town. They had problems with people grabbing high ticked items, going out the back fire exit to a car waiting for them. Long gone before employees could check the exit.
I knew a lady that worked in a store, Said one Saturday in spring the garden department was busy selling lawn mowers. When the manager came in they told him the new employee he had was doing well making sales that day. The Manager said "I don't have any new employees" Turns out some kid had a store uniform on. Friends would pull up front and he would load them a new push mower. Never saw the kid again.

Bill Dufour
04-18-2018, 10:26 PM
Lowes has a guarantee that if you place an order online it will be ready in 30 minutes when you come by. It checks the inventory as you place the order so they know it is in stock.
Only problem is if they do not meet the promise there is nothing they do for you except tell you to come back in a few days and maybe the stuff will be in stock by then. no free delivery when it does come in, no gift card, no nothing!:rolleyes:
Bill D

Frederick Skelly
04-19-2018, 6:29 AM
I knew a lady that worked in a store, Said one Saturday in spring the garden department was busy selling lawn mowers. When the manager came in they told him the new employee he had was doing well making sales that day. The Manager said "I don't have any new employees" Turns out some kid had a store uniform on. Friends would pull up front and he would load them a new push mower. Never saw the kid again.

Unbelieveable! That's like something out of a movie.
And to steal lawnmowers? Even at $400 each, that's pretty bold. Justt 'wow'.

I had no idea shoplifting was as huge a problem as the stories you folks are describing. Eye opening for sure.

Fred

Nick Decker
04-19-2018, 10:02 AM
I've had the online inventory problem with both Lowes snd Home Depot. The best was at Lowes, when their website told me they had lots of the item, on Aisle Thirty-something. Went to pick it up and not only were they out of the item, there was no AISLE with that number in the store.

Brian Henderson
04-19-2018, 12:10 PM
I worked in retail for 25 years.
My guess is when the store did inventory, The employee from the inventory company scanned the shelf label, then counted whatever was in that spot. In your case concrete footers. There should be some kind of safeguard in their system to catch mistakes like that. We got a report at our company that listed items showing no sales for the week.
Possible someone put them out someplace crazy in the store like outdoor garden. Thought they were pond liners or ???????
My local lowe's now has an on-line pickup right by the front door. I can order online then drive to the store and get it once they confirm it is in stock.

I know I can do that but I honestly shouldn't have to. I mean, Lowes is especially bad at this, but their online "product locator" is always way off. It tells you where in the store something is supposed to be, but invariably I have to ask because it's usually all the way on the other side of the store. And since they have no idea what they actually have, and their online inventory is so clearly off (and they should have just done inventory at the beginning of the year anyhow), showing up expecting something and them not having it would be pretty common.

Brian Henderson
04-19-2018, 12:12 PM
Lowes has a guarantee that if you place an order online it will be ready in 30 minutes when you come by. It checks the inventory as you place the order so they know it is in stock.
Only problem is if they do not meet the promise there is nothing they do for you except tell you to come back in a few days and maybe the stuff will be in stock by then. no free delivery when it does come in, no gift card, no nothing!:rolleyes:
Bill D

That's not a guarantee then, that's a suggestion.

Jim Koepke
04-19-2018, 3:14 PM
A home project supply store that doesn't have cement mixing tubs? Some manager, or even a lot of managers, should be fired.

When we have bought them at HD, we had to decide which size. We have used a few of them for various things. They make good cat litter boxes.

jtk

Brian Henderson
04-22-2018, 3:22 AM
And I stopped into another Lowes today, since I was just driving by with my wife and they were supposed to have 52 of these stupid things in stock... not a darn thing on the shelf. Once again asked the guys at the commercial desk since they're sitting 50 feet away and they have no idea. How much do you want to bet that these things are sitting in the back room gathering dust?

Lee DeRaud
04-22-2018, 12:43 PM
The ones I love are when the website shows "none at your store" and "not available for delivery". When none of the nearby (as in "all of southern California"), showed the same thing, I called Lowes corporate and asked about it. Turns out it means it's a discontinued item but they won't remove it from the website as long as any store anywhere shows a non-zero quantity on hand.

Lee DeRaud
04-22-2018, 12:52 PM
And I stopped into another Lowes today, since I was just driving by with my wife and they were supposed to have 52 of these stupid things in stock... not a darn thing on the shelf. Once again asked the guys at the commercial desk since they're sitting 50 feet away and they have no idea. How much do you want to bet that these things are sitting in the back room gathering dust?More likely 12' up on top of a shelf in a completely different department.

The layout of the stores doesn't help either. My Home Depot has paving bricks with the building materials and edging bricks in the garden department, on the opposite corner of the building, near enough 1/4-mile away. Not to mention oddities like having hoses in the garden department and hose repair parts in the plumbing department.

Bill Dufour
04-22-2018, 7:42 PM
There are three HDs within five miles of my house. They are laid out different, one is a mirror image of the other, the third is just different. they have slightly different inventories.
All are flat basic city lots with no special reason to be laid out the way they are not designed to fit the lot in any special way. no relation to compass directions etc.
Bill D.

Tom Stenzel
04-23-2018, 12:36 AM
People just walk out with them.
We use to have an small Hardware store here in town. They had problems with people grabbing high ticked items, going out the back fire exit to a car waiting for them. Long gone before employees could check the exit.
I knew a lady that worked in a store, Said one Saturday in spring the garden department was busy selling lawn mowers. When the manager came in they told him the new employee he had was doing well making sales that day. The Manager said "I don't have any new employees" Turns out some kid had a store uniform on. Friends would pull up front and he would load them a new push mower. Never saw the kid again.

When Hudson's had their downtown Detroit store a couple decades ago two guys stole a canoe. They got caught when they came back and tried for the paddles.

You just can't make this stuff up.

-Tom

Brian Henderson
04-23-2018, 2:50 AM
People just walk out with them.
We use to have an small Hardware store here in town. They had problems with people grabbing high ticked items, going out the back fire exit to a car waiting for them. Long gone before employees could check the exit.

Except these are not high ticket items, they're $5. And even if people were stealing them, virtually all stores would have just had their inventories and all of those numbers would have been corrected. I just don't get that *ALL* stores, even the ones that report online that they have a ton, have none when you walk in the door. That's 3 stores I've walked into that have had empty shelves with a sizeable online inventory.

Stan Calow
04-25-2018, 6:49 PM
You want cheap or you want good service. Most people want cheap. Few alternatives left.

Kev Williams
04-26-2018, 1:08 AM
Several years ago we got a call from a grocery store, seems the cops have your son and daughter-in-law in custody for shoplifting. (different son, not the DIL's hubby)...
They got caught stealing a carton of cigarettes and a VHS movie. But the funny part was when the store manager says "Yeah, we've watched them take stuff occasionally, usually a pack of smokes or a candy bar..."

You WHAT? You've seen them stealing from you several times and this is the first time you did anything?? "Well, this time they were into the $40-$50 range so we thought we'd better step in"....

We couldn't believe our ears! Let them get away with the penny-ante stuff and step in only when they start getting more bold... Why let them get away with it at ALL? When I was about 7 years old I got caught stealing a 5 cent pencil eraser, and I thought I was going to prison for sure! I didn't go into that store again for 5 years!

It's no wonder shoplifting is so rampant...

Brian Henderson
04-26-2018, 12:11 PM
I finally found what I was looking for at a store way out of the way, there were plenty on the shelf (just not where the online directory said they would be in the store), so at least I know where to go now. This is just another example of stores making everything harder while pretending to make it easier for the consumer.

Carlos Alvarez
04-26-2018, 1:08 PM
I have never, not once, looked at a product on Rockler's web site that showed correct inventory. Every single one says "call store to verify availability." It has driven me to ignore Rockler's site.

I've found Lowes and HD to be accurate unless it says there are 1-2 left, because in many cases that means a floor demo model, or they just "lost" one or whatever.

Lee DeRaud
04-26-2018, 2:32 PM
I have never, not once, looked at a product on Rockler's web site that showed correct inventory. Every single one says "call store to verify availability." It has driven me to ignore Rockler's site.They changed their system quite awhile ago, maybe 6-7 years, so the individual stores don't report back sales to corporate in real-time. But the in-store computer tends to be very accurate for quantity-on-hand.

At least the website gives you the item number for the guy to look up, rather than trying to describe some obscure router bit shape over the phone.

Carlos Alvarez
04-26-2018, 2:46 PM
They changed their system quite awhile ago, maybe 6-7 years, so the individual stores don't report back sales to corporate in real-time. But the in-store computer tends to be very accurate for quantity-on-hand.

At least the website gives you the item number for the guy to look up, rather than trying to describe some obscure router bit shape over the phone.

The end result is that I look everywhere else first and Rockler is my last resort.

Doing an online order from Lowes right now for the wife to pick up...hope this thread didn't jinx me...

Brian Henderson
04-27-2018, 11:55 AM
I have never, not once, looked at a product on Rockler's web site that showed correct inventory. Every single one says "call store to verify availability." It has driven me to ignore Rockler's site.

I've found Lowes and HD to be accurate unless it says there are 1-2 left, because in many cases that means a floor demo model, or they just "lost" one or whatever.

Which would be fine if they'd actually go look, but I know they don't. I was in a HD quite a while ago, loading up some things down by the contractor desk when they got a call, I assume, asking if there was something in stock. And the guy put the phone down, just stood there for a minute, then got on the phone again and said they had it. He never looked it up on the computer and he certainly never went to check the aisle. It gets the person into the store and if the shelves are empty, then they can say it sold out between the time he called and the time he showed up. So there's no point in calling either.

glenn bradley
04-27-2018, 12:07 PM
As it has been since the earliest days . . . Garbage In = Garbage Out. Like websites that get abandoned or any sort of data base function that loses its sparkle. Poor care and feeding result in misinformation. At work we try to purge poorly cared for data. Our position is that no data is better than bad data; no data makes you reverse engineer or seek things out . . . bad data specifically misguides you. We prefer the former.

As a defense against the "wasted trip" syndrome, I use "buy online, pick up in store". They email when it is at the service desk which around here generally takes an hour or two. Either that or they report the item as unavailable via the same email system. I may still lose some time but, I can be productive while I'm waiting for the verdict.

Carlos Alvarez
04-27-2018, 12:47 PM
That is certainly not normal, and is just one employee being a lazy a-hole.

Funny story...two weeks ago I found myself wanting to buy something at Lowes that was up high, and needed a large cart. I couldn't find either an employee nor a large cart. Said screw this and placed an online order for it. Did the rest of my shopping. Got to the front and my large item was there waiting. Hehe.

Lee DeRaud
04-27-2018, 1:25 PM
As a defense against the "wasted trip" syndrome, I use "buy online, pick up in store". They email when it is at the service desk which around here generally takes an hour or two. Either that or they report the item as unavailable via the same email system. I may still lose some time but, I can be productive while I'm waiting for the verdict.Especially useful for heavy stuff like toilets and bathroom vanity tops, as I've had multiple occasions to discover recently. That approach not only saves a potential wasted trip, it saves me going on a scavenger hunt for the correct flavor cart (all of which are usually at the "wrong" end of the store) and also ensures the instant availability of a worker bee to help load it in the car.

John M Wilson
04-27-2018, 6:38 PM
As a defense against the "wasted trip" syndrome, I use "buy online, pick up in store".

During last year's Christmas shopping, I wanted to pick up a set of socket wrenches for my daughter. Searched on-line, and Lowes had a set like I wanted, and showed plenty in stock. I went to the store, searched all through the tool section, but could not find the set that I wanted. I flagged down a blue-clad worker who helped me search. After 15 or 20 minutes of looking, neither of us could find the set that I had seen on-line. The clerk said "Well, I guess we don't have those" and walked away. I pulled out my phone, ordered the set for in-store pickup, and went and stood by the service desk. A different clerk pulled the ticket, walked directly to the wrenches in an end-of-aisle display, and brought them to me. We both had a good laugh, but the original clerk was not amused. :D

I wonder who's job it was to update the item location for the Holiday Promotion?