If I need PT wood for a major project I go to a family owned plant. It is not local to me but I work close enough to the plant that I can swing by to buy the wood. Their service is ok, not bad, not great, but nothing to complain about. The product quality is MUCH better than Lowes or HD. Price is about the same or a bit less. There is a PT plant in our county but he is far enough away that I have never been there but I need to make a visit to check them out.
Forget building supplies for a second but I will tie hardware and lumber back into this in a second. :laughing: Lets talk PIZZA! :licking:
When we first moved to the country the nearby town had a locally owned pizza place and Pizza Hut. If you wanted pizza those were you two choices. Since we can get Pizza Hut anywhere we went to the local store quite a bit. The pizza was ok. Nothing to complain about but nothing to rave about either. Pizza Hut was just as good. The problem with the local pizza place is that the owner was never there and she hired people who could not speak ENGLISH. EVERY order we placed was messed up. We went through this maybe a half dozen times until New Years Eve. The wife ordered the pizza on the phone and was very careful in the order. When I picked up the order I checked the pizzas to see if they were done correctly. Because of some many mistakes we had to check every danged pizza which is something we had never had to do at the pizza places we used over the years or today. Of course the pizza order was wrong. Surprise! NOT! They had put meat on a veggie pizza for goodness sake! I politely pointed out the problem and the guy who took the order, who could barely speak English, and obviously could not understand English, proceeded to lecture me on how to order a pizza.
That was the last visit to the mismanaged local business.
We went to the Pizza Hut for a few years and they managed to get EVERY order correct. Amazing. They had employees who could speak English. Local people who where polite and could take an order. The employees would recognize us when we called and knew what we were ordering! :thumbsup: Amazing concept for a business! Hire people who understand the local language! People who stay around, are polite, friendly, and get to know the Customer. Do you need an MBA to figure out that business model? This is from the big, bad, Corporate Company. :thumbsup:
Now we have three more pizza places in town. Two new chains and a local place. The local place has The Best Pizza and the service is excellent. They have never messed up a pizza order. The new chain we have been using as a change of pace and they have gotten every order correct. The one time the new local place made a mistake it was in giving us a cannoli. We called up the store, of course the owner answered and knew who we were. She apologized profusely for the mistake, and over our protests, DROVE the cannoli to our house! :thumbsup: We just wanted a credit for the next vist. :shocked: This lady is an awesome person and a great addition to the community. Oh yeah, she is in the place working almost every night.
What does this have to do with Lowes and HD?
The horrible local pizza place is on the main drag in town. Behind it, on a side street, is the Great Local Pizza Place. How the horrible place stays in business is beyond me especially when people can go a few feet and get the best pizza in town. The Great Local Pizza Place is in a building that used to be a local fuel supplier and hardware store. The fuel and hardware store had been a fixture in town for a couple of generations. However the fire code changed and they could not afford to bring the fuel part of the business up to the new code so they had to stop that part of the business. Hardware was not doing so well by itself and then Lowes came to town so they closed up the hardware business. The Great Local Pizza Place rented the building and the people who owned the building opened up a florist shop which is doing very well.
I told you I would bring it back to hardware. :laughing:
For us, service trumps local vs not local.
Later,
Dan
