Conflicts of our home supply/hardware stores
I find this good that our Home Depot doesn't have long lines of people buying hurricane supplies today. Where you see mobs of people leaving with wood planks and such at the other stores, ours is just business as usual, which means no business. I know, I know, you Home Depot lovers don't like this. I do. Since they don't have the large wood planks for sale, they don't have much business. That and no plant department was the win situation for the Grove.Home Depot just hangs on now for spite, they don't make any money at the Grove location. I don't want to make this a Home Depot debate. You are either for them ruining our town or you aren't.
Beth Dunlop says this in today's Herald about the proposed Wal-Mart downtown, I suspect she feels the same about the Home Depot in the Grove, while we may not be urban, the Grove site is a prime site: "At a time and in a place where we should be seeking to create urbanity, a Wal-Mart -- even the nicest superstore ever built -- would mean instant squalor. Big-box stores may be a fact of suburban and -- in far too many places -- small-town life; they may be a fact of economic life. But a big-box store does not belong on this prime urban site. For decades, the civic and cultural leadership of Miami has worked to create what is still an emerging downtown cultural precinct."
But that is not what this post is about, this is about Shell Lumber.
What I don't understand is that Shell Lumber is closed. It's admirable that they maybe want to close on Sundays and don't feel the need for greed, but I think as a community service, they need to start opening on Sundays. People work on their homes on the weekends and need supplies. We saved their ass by fighting Home Depot's large store, which honestly is why they are still around, now they need to start accommodating the people that might need them on Sundays, especially when a storm is threatening.
Both these photos were taken less than an hour ago.
posted by Tom Falco at 12:13 PM
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16 Comments:
What do you have against Home Depot now ? They really are not disruptive and they are convenient..So get over it ...
Guess you didn't read the part where I said the post was about Shell Lumber. Not Home Depot.
The Big Boxes such as Home Depot & Wal*Mart were born because of the apathy of retailers like Shell Lumber.
These big boxes are giving what the consumer wanted; competitive prices and convenient store hours including Sundays, holidays and late hours.
There is so much whining about Wal*Mart and The Home Depot because they supposedly make so much money. However, as someone who is familar with retailing, most independent owners of hardware stores made a lot more margin at the expense of the consumer.
I absolutely hate the Home Depot on 8th Street. And I love the Home Depot on the Grove. This is about Shell Lumber, however...
1. They don't open on Sundays.
2. They don't open as late as HD
3. They don't have A/C on a huge section of their store
4. Their parking is minimal
Now, here's the thing: until Home Depot and other big stores opened, places like Shell Lumber had margins that were easily 2 or 3 times what HD currently has.
HD is a public company, you can read all their financials on a 10k that they file with the SEC on a regular basis. They are not making a hell of a lot of money themselves, but, if it wasn't for them, stores like Shell Lumber would still be gauging the consumer.
It is laughable that these things turn into quasi religious arguments. Both, Shell and HD are businesses, there to make money for their owners, period.
As a consumer, I welcome the choice.
Isn't it nice that we don't have a traffic bottleneck with people waiting to get into Home Depot; they can all go to SW 8 St. and disrupt and trash that neighborhood. We are not an industrial park, we are a village. HD in the Grove is an obscure non-entity and is just there to prove their point that they could go anywhere they wanted to. They are there illegally because the City did not follow its own laws. It is not zoned for C2 (heavy commercial)- they had no choice but to go into the old Kmart which is C1 (light commercial). That is why there is little impact to our community.
Shell Lumber quoted $700 for a louvered mahogany door that I was able to get for $140 from a small manufacturer out by the airport. Hey, but I didn't get popcorn.
Me thinks someone feels guilty today about going to Home Depot because a big storm a blowin and nowhere else to go.
After bellyaching so long about the Depot, you finally had to set foot in the store out of need.
Am I correct? Was Grapeyman spotted there?
They don't have wood, and I have hurricane shutters. Why would I go there?
My guess is Shell lumber is waiting for a condo developer to knock on there door and they are history. They have a great location and as soon as the market starts to swing back say bye bye.
That Home Depot simply has to be losing money. And I don't care how great their prices & hours are if they don't cater to community needs. It truly is a non-entity.
Remember after our devasting hurricane season a few years ago where people lost their lives and homes, Home Depot made this public comment: Thanks to the recent hurricane season, our profits are up!
have you ever been in the home depot grape? i go quite a bit, and there's usually a good crowd in there, not 8th street chaos crowded, but busy. how do you know they're not making money, or infact they're losing money but "hanging on for spite"...huh?
"Guess you didn't read the part where I said the post was about Shell Lumber. Not Home Depot."
Let's see now... out of four full paragraphs, the first three talk about Home Depot ("You are either for them ruining our town or you aren't.") and Shell Lumber is finally mentioned in the last.
I can read just fine thanks.
I went to Shell Lumber yesterday to get some stainless steel hardware I needed for my boat preparations. Finding them closed, I went to West Marine where I got a Shell Lumber class of service and avoided stepping inside Home Depot.
So... they open much better hours... they have much better prices... they have A/C inside the entire store... their staff is actually nice and knowledgeable... they have tons of parking
Other than the semi-religious fervor, how is the HD not catering to community needs? They sure are catering to MY needs.
I have used the Grove Home Depot on several occassions and found them to be the best Home Depot in town. They are courteous, knowledgeable and speak English. I don't find their store anywhere near as unsightly as when Zayre's used to occupy the space and some other discount stores in the past. It's not like Home Depot came in and knocked down a bunch of homes to build on; the site has always been a commercial entity.
Sharon Jones, Miami
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