On Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:13:22 -0500, dpb wrote:

Red wrote:
Bought some construction material from HD yesterday. The receipt
shows the cost of each item and the refund value of each item. The
refund value is 10% less than the purchase price. Guess they're now
charging a 10% restocking fee on returned items. They've now lost my
business.

I find it simply incredible folks want the absolute rock-bottom cheapest
initial price and still think that owes them the "right" to take stuff
home,

They want it because the stores offer it. If someone offers
"service", someone will want to take advantage of it.***(towards the
bottom) If no store offered it anymore, people would get used to
that, but one store started, years ago, because they found they could
make more money that way, even allowing for the cost of taking things
back. If HD really changes it's policy, it will cost them,
especially if Lowes, Menaards, etc. don't change theirs, although it
still might be worth it. It's more likely they'll warn specific
customers that a new policy applies to them for 6 months or a year or
so.

Closely related: Did you know that [the famous department store I can
never remember the name of which started in Philadephia but had a
branch in DC**] was the first place in America to have fixed prices
for things. Around 1876 iirc. Prior to that. and their policy
catching on elsewhere, people dickered about everything they bought.

**I googled. John Wanamakers. Famous in the east and among people
who dress well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanamaker's *** (towards
the bottom)

let it lay around a construction site for a month or two and then
take the culls back for full credit/refund. Often I even see folks take
tools for a weekend job, use them, then claim some "defect" and return
them...

That's outrageous and I won't do that. If a buyer can tell
something's been used, he'll pass on it and get one that's never been
used. The used one can sit in stock forever. Or he'll want a
discount, justifiably.

More below.

But, as for HD policy,

Our Store Return Policy
Our Store Return Policy Basics

Returns within 90 days of purchase and with a valid sales receipt
will be exchanged, refunded in cash, credited to your account or
refunded via The Home Depot store credit.

Return and Product Exceptions

- Purchases made with store credit, gift certificates and gift cards
will be refunded as store credit. Store credits cannot be used to
purchase gift cards.
- Gasoline-powered equipment may be returned within 30 days of
purchase with a valid sales receipt. After 30 days, item may be sent out
for repair at the customer's expense, unless covered under warranty.

Sorry, Returns Not Available on the Following Products:
-Custom made products and custom tinted paint
-Gift cards, gift certificates and store credits

All the rules so far are fair, though I can certainly see how someone
could sort of get trapped by no refunds on gift cards. Of course I've
solved the problem by not giving gift cards, even the ones that don't
expire!! Once for my mother and her husband I was going to give them
a gift certificate for an unusal ethnic restaurant near them.
Fortunately they didn't offer gift certificates (which is pretty
stupid. They shoudl have made one up when I called and asked) So I
gave my folks a 50 dollar bill taped to a piece of paper saying where
they shoudl spend it. Years went by, they never went, and the
restaurant went out of business. The gift certificate would have been
worthless, but the money I gave them was fine.

-Utility trailers

I guess that's something a lot of people wnat to use once and then
return.

Nothing about 10%; I'd suggest asking local store management about what
the deal is specifically if it's that bothersome but my real suggestion
is as above--you buy it; it's yours unless there is an actual defect.
Don't buy stuff if the intent is to return it; what's the point anyway???

They want to think about it, don't want to come back, want to see if
it will work, are afraid they'll sell out and they have to keep coming
back until it's finally in stock again, Etc.

***Enlightened retailing

Wanamaker first thought of how he would run a store on new principles
when, as a youth, a merchant refused his request to exchange a
purchase. A practicing Christian, he chose not to advertise on
Sundays. His faith also informed other business decisions, many of
which were innovative and before their time. Before he opened his
Grand Depot for retail business, he let evangelist Dwight L. Moody use
its facilities as a meeting place, while Wanamaker provided 300 ushers
from his store personnel. His retail advertisements—the first to be
copyrighted beginning in 1874—were factual, and promises made in them
were kept. Word of this increased Wanamaker's business and John
Wanamaker never lost the public's trust while he pioneered truth in
American advertising.

Wanamaker guaranteed the quality of his merchandise in print, allowed
his customers to return purchases for a cash refund and offered the
first restaurant to be located inside a department store. Wanamaker's
also innovated the price tag, because John Wanamaker believed if
everyone was equal before God, then everyone should be equal before
price. All of these concepts were seen as innovations in American
retailing at the time.

His employees were to be treated respectfully by management (including
not being scolded in public), and John Wanamaker & Company offered its
employees access to the John Wanamaker Commercial Institute, as well
as free medical care, recreational facilities, profit sharing plans,
and pensions—long before these types of benefits were considered
standard in corporate employment.
The famous logo

Innovation and "firsts" marked Wanamaker's. The store was the first
department store with electrical illumination (1878), first store with
a telephone (1879), and the first store to install pneumatic tubes to
transport cash and documents (1880).

Wanamaker's commissioned a Philadelphia/New Jersey artist, George
Washington Nicholson (1832-1912), to paint a large landscape mural,
"The Old Homestead," which was finished in March 1892. The 7x14-foot
mural was still owned by Wanamaker's in 1950, but its location is
currently unknown.

In 1910, Wanamaker replaced his famous Grand Depot in stages, and
constructed a brand-new, purpose-built structure on the same site in
Center City Philadelphia. The new store, lavishly built in the
Florentine style with granite walls by Chicago architect Daniel H.
Burnham, had 12 floors (9 for retail), numerous galleries and two
lower levels totaling nearly two-million square feet. The palatial
emporium featured the Wanamaker Organ, the former St. Louis World's
Fair pipe organ, at the time one of the world's largest organs. The
organ was installed in the store's marble-clad central atrium known as
the Grand Court. Another item from the St. Louis Fair in the Grand
Court is the large bronze eagle, which quickly became the symbol of
the store and a favorite meeting place for shoppers. The store was
dedicated by President William Howard Taft on December 30, 1911.

Despite its size, the organ was deemed insufficient to fill the Grand
Court with its music. Wanamaker's responded by assembling its own
staff of organ builders and expanding the organ several times over a
period of years. The organ still stands in place in the store today,
and is the largest operational pipe organ in the world, with some
28,000 pipes. It is famed for the delicate, orchestra-like beauty of
its tone as well as its incredible power. News of the Titanic's
sinking was transmitted to Wanamaker's wireless station in New York
City, and given to anxious crowds waiting outside—yet another first
for an American retail store. Public Christmas Caroling in the store's
Grand Court began in 1918.

Other innovations included employing buyers to travel overseas to
Europe each year for the latest fashions, the first White sale (1878)
and other themed sales such as the February "Opportunity Sales" to
keep prices as low as possible while keeping volume high. The store
also broadcast its organ concerts on the Wanamaker-owned radio station
WOO-AM beginning in 1922. Under the leadership of James Bayard
Woodford, Wanamaker's opened piano stores in Philadelphia and New York
that did a huge business with an innovative fixed-price system of
sales. Salons in period decor were used to sell the higher-price
items. Wanamaker also tried selling small organs built by the Austin
Organ Company for a time.

The famous advertising axiom "Half the money I spend on advertising is
wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half" is credited to John
Wanamaker.

Although disputed in some circles, John Wanamaker is credited as the
first to coin the "Retailer's Rule"…"The customer is always right."


--Of course some people seem to think this is literally true, when
it's only a policy of some stores, which even they suspend when the
customer makes ridiculous demands.