does home despot contract with their suppliers for identically labeled but inferior models?

[unblock]

i am not asking if home despot chooses inferior brands or models to put on in their stores.

i am asking specifically if you get a widget model number #xyz from home depot and another widget model number #xyz from a non-home depot store or direct from the manufacturer, you will find the products are actually different despite the identical labeling and model number.

a carpenter just told us that he tried this with some tool and took them apart and found internal parts made of plastic in the home despot version but metal in the direct-from-the-manufacturer version.


is this true or just a rumor? i have googled and seen others ask the same question but i've not found anything definitive.

tia!



incidentally, i'm no fan of home despot anyway, just wondering if this is one more thing to add to my list. my sense has always been that they stock flimsy crap, but i have nothing to support the idea that identical models are better if purchased elsewhere.

[Raven]

1. Yes they do. n/t

[lazarus]

2. I can believe it

I know for a fact that Wal-Mart does it, so why not HD?

[arbusto_baboso]

3. I know contractors around here who refuse to use HD paint.

But will buy the same brand from other sources. Anecdotally, what you say makes sense.

[hedgehog]

4. A brand name reputation is vital to a manufaturer and just about

impossible to regain once lost. I doubt very much any manufacturer would allow second rate merchandise to go out with the copyrighted label.

[baldguy]

9. They would if their largest customer - with, say 60% of their business - told them to.

I once worked for one of Wal-Mart's suppliers. And while they were our largest single customer, we never counted on them to survive. Mainly because Wal-Mart dictated the terms of the business relationship from beginning to end: how many of our employees would be dedicated to service the account, the quantities they would order, the amount they would pay, and the % profit our company would make off them.

We had a hard time getting people to work on the Wal-Mart account team - because those reps could never meet their sales goals. They always got the dollar amount, but the profit margin was always 0.00% or less. The only way we ever made any money off of that account was from incentives we got from the manufacturers.

You've got to understand just how big & how influential - and how destructive - Wal-Mart is the the US economy.

[Greyhound]

16. The destructive force that is Wal-Mart cannot be understated. n/t

[dmallind]

5. Company I worked for used to sell to HD and not in that case

Obviously no idea if they do so with other vendors but was never requested or even mentioned with us.

[customerserviceguy]

6. I strongly suspected this was the case with K-Mart

back in the 1970's. It always seemed like the stuff I got there was of inferior manufacture compared to the stuff I got at full-price stores.

[lisa58]

7. Yes, they do - I had a plumber replace...

...shower heads in my bathrooms because they were all clogged. He told me that was because Home Depot gets their own "knock off" versions of the same showerheads you get in a plumbing supply store and they are less expensive because the materials used to make them are lower quality.

[Robb]

8. Coming from three generations of plumbers

...I think he might've misspoke.

Generally, there are several models within a fixture line, some are designed for fewer problems, for commercial and higher-use installations -- and those are the kind plumbers like to install. They do cost more, but for example in a hard-to-get-to place, you want something that isn't likely to fail, even in several years.

It's the difference between, for example, a shaped ceramic valve and a rubber-sealed one. Neither will leak when you install them, the rubber one has a lifetime measured in years, the ceramic one in decades.

[izquierdista]

10. And the Chinese one in minutes

which, coincidentally, is where most of Home Depot's crap washes in from.

[unblock]

12. that's the crux of the question -- is the inferior product a different MODEL or identically labelled

i have no particular ethical problem with home despot selling model #xyz1, which is not as good as #xyz2, which is higher quality, provided that they are labeled differently, permitting consumers and reviewers to differentiate.

i DO have a major problem if both the crappy and the solid version are identically labelled as model #xyz.


on the other hand, once the secret is out, we can all know that #xyz.hd sucks and #xyz.other is better.

[marybourg]

13. About 30 years ago, many name brand manufacturers succumbed

to pressure to lower their prices into the range of discount stores, by lowering the quality of selected items without new or different labeling. It was talked about for about 15 min in the media; people wondered why established manufacturers would risk their reputations for a few bucks, but it became accepted practice in some industries. Mattresses come to mind.

[louis-t]

11. I installed their blinds for a few years.

A lot of them came from Mexico and the really cheap ones came from China. More and more were coming from China. I need to go have my lead levels checked. The in-stock blinds they sell are totally inferior to anything I have ever installed. The failure rate is 100% in the cellular shades. Most don't work properly right out of the box.

[hedgehog]

14. It's one thing if Home Depot is selling cheap Levalour blinds,

it's another thing if they're selling Levalor blinds that are crap.

[ThomWV]

15. No, the quality of virtually everything except flash lights has turned to shit.

[Greyhound]

17. That's what I've seen as well.

Buy something, it is good, go right back and buy some more and they've turned to crap.

Clothes to construction supplies, I'm seeing it every day. Try to buy a nice new lamp anymore.

[snooper2]

18. I only shop at Lowes, Home Depot just sucks period..

I wouldn't even buy painters tape from Home Depot

The hire staff that know nothing about plumbing, electrical, construction

They have those shitty "self service" checkouts which are fine for grocery stores but a pain in the ass when you have a cart full of 12' 2x6 and you have to go look for the one person who is supposed to be "monitoring" the self checkout lanes

Their product lines are junk (besides what this thread is calling out/asking)

Stores are in general dis-repair with disgusting bathrooms

In all, fuck Home Depot and that shitty orange color they put over everything

[unblock]

19. home despot hires good, knowledgeable staff WHEN THEY OPEN A NEW STORE

that puts the competition out of business and gets to local consumers hooked.

within a year or so, the knowledgeable staff are gone and replaced with idiots.

[Statistical]

20. I doubt it. Likely the one w/ metal parts was older.

Given stocks on shelves can be differing ages that could happen.

I bet if this contractor went out and look for the same item after some period of time he would find the cheap "Home Depot version" in every store as the older ones are sold off and replaced by newer ones.

Companies routinely debase their own products to make a couple nickles extra profit routinely they re-use the same model.

Even happens in technology:
Linksys WRT54G is one of the longest lived wireless routers on the market it has gone through 9 major revisions and dozens of minor revisions. The ones sold today are a pathetic piece of junk compared to the originals.