Then to be fair I think you should acknowledge that your claim that the big boxes sell inferior versions of the same product is unsupported - or is that what you’re saying here.
Big boxes or lies? If lies, well, OK. If big boxes, what are you talking about?
My time is precious, also. I’m in the business of making money, also. Apparently because my business is not specifically limited to plumbing, your time is more important than mine. You know something Mr. Cats the attitude of smug superiority is one of the things that gave the big boxes their market niche - and what a niche it has turned out to be.
I’ve been through the checkout lines in HD hundreds and hundreds of times and nothing like this has ever happened. Occasionally lines will back up due to the inexperience of the person at the register or some problem with the transaction, but not once have I ever had to wait while someone ran back to get something he forgot.
Mr. **Cats ** it’s obvious you don’t like HD and the other big boxes. I don’t know why but perhaps it’s because they treat you as just another customer and not some specially privileged case.
Maybe with the chain dollar stores, but with the small local dollar store chains and independents, I’ve seen lots of seconds; not clones intended to be cheap like Dualcell batteries and Suny clock radios, but name brand test products that didn’t were failures (Raspberry Dr. Pepper, Gerber Habanero baby food, etc), store brands from supermarket chains that aren’t in the region (Wegmans pop in California, Winn-Dixie corn flake cereal in Oregon, etc), and products intended for foreign markets (tubes of Crest labeled in Portuguese, Gilette disposable razors labeled in Hebrew, and so on.).
I have always felt that the hair products marked “not guaranteed geniune unless sold from a pretentious boutique for an arm and a leg” are a huge ripoff. Why doesn’t Oscar Mayer put a notice on its Deviled Ham saying that they won’t guarantee it if you buy it from a COSTCO?
So is Target selling counterfeit merchandise or does American Crew make Hair Gel for the salons and Hair Jel for Target? If the containers are identical, the product inside them should be identical.
I’m an electrician, so I’m always purchasing electrical supplies. The BB stores don’t have everything, but the stuff they do have is the same quality and cheaper than what the SD stocks, plus I get to choose the parts I need and want rather than have to tell the SD worker what I want and then he goes back and picks out what he thinks I need. I tend to be somewhat limited when I go to an SD that way. I get in and out of the BB quicker and with less of a hit to the pocket book. I have no problem getting electrical supplies through the BB as long as they have what I need. I would say they have 95% of the stuff I need on the average. Larger and specialty cables are the exception along with commercial service equipment.
The BB usually has a much better return policy and procedure than the little guys.
Getting credit and no interest payment schedules are not a problem with the BB either. They can be a hassle at a little shop.
With respect to the OP, this is apples vs. oranges. As you and I both know, everything electrical has to meet UL standards and have a listing in the White Book, so it’s not possible for Square D to have two different standards of manufacture for QO panelboards, or AFC to have two grades of 12/3 MC Lite. Of the three electrical wholesalers with whom I have accounts, I can pick 70% of my own order, and if I want to look at something in the back, they have no problem. Pricing on most product is very close to that of the Big Box. I had no problem establishing a line of credit with the independent wholesalers. As far as returns and replacements, the last time I needed something, the call was something like, “Hey George, one of the globes on those Kichler fixtures I picked up the other day was broken in the box.” “No problem, I’ll get the replacement ordered today-if I rush it, day after tomorrow. Is that alright?” “Sure. Thanks, man.” Total phone time: 90 seconds, max. You ain’t gonna get that kind of service at the BB.
With regard to electrical fixtures: I have done a fair bit of home renovation recently, so have been buying a lot of light fixtures 9mainly from H-D). Anyway, most of the fixtures are now made in China, ands they are made incredibly cheaply! In fact, it really makes no sense to attempt to repair them-you just throw them out and buy a new one. I have also noticed that builders use the cheapest fixttures they can find…so where do you go to find a quality (made in the USA) light fixture? I’m not about to pay $150.00 for a piece of junk-i’d prefer something that will last.
BTW-the Italian-made stuff is nice-but too damn pricey!
That was my impression of why there are differently-named yet essentially the same product lines at different retailers – so they can claim to have the “lowest” price!
I certainly can’t discount the possibility of poorer quality parts for different product lines, but it would seem to me that in many cases it would be too expensive to organize two different manufacturing processes which, otherwise the same, carry different quality standards. It would seem to be cheaper to have the flexibility to ship to any retailer from any product line, assuming the products are otherwise identical, and to save the additional QA overhead in keeping the product lines to different standards and making sure they are always separated.
USA or not, you get what you pay for. The $8.00 light fixture is going to be just that. I don’t select fixtures based on the country of origin, so I can’t give you a list of fixtures or manufacturers to look at. I select the fixtures by how they feel and look. And to be honest, the customer selects and purchases most of the fixtures I install. I don’t really want to be burdened with the task of interior decorator.
I do mostly commercial installations too. So the fixtures I install on the job aren’t likely to see their way into a home. The occasional home that I wire or the occasional light I replace or add at my own house are selected by feel and look.
Well the fact is, there are manufacturers who produce at the lowest level of quality possible. these are the guys whose products are always breaking, failing, and being returned for credit. Why to people buy this shit?
Simple-price. The Big-Box stores have fed this movement toward crappy products, by discounting as well…so now you have (mostly) cheaply-made chines products taking over. And, at the level that this junk is made to 9and priced at), the manufactureres fully expect to get 1-5% returns-and its built into the pricing. So, H-D gets rich, the consumer gets ripped off, and the junkyards fill up (of course, that may we be an INTENDED side effect-the chinese buy junkyrad scrap to make MORE junky products with!)
It may be a silly question at this stage in the thread, but i’ve seen a lot of comments to the effect that Chinese products are inherently inferior. Now certainly, I’ve seen the ‘made in China’ label on lots of low-end items, but is there any evidence that Chinese products are inferior to their counterparts from other countries?
I cannot speak for toilets. I can speak for household goods as I work in the PS dept of a huge U.S. household goods manufacturer. And I can tell you with 100% certainty that the products that we sell in discount stores is the exact same stuff that you’ll find in other stores.
Sometimes we package our products differently. For instance, we’ll offer a triple pack of 2.9 oz. (vs. our usual 2.7 oz) deodorants for sale in the warehouse clubs that you won’t be able to find in other stores. But if you see the “Deodorant X” label on it, you can be assured that “Deodorant X” is inside and not some cheapo imitation.
Not only would it be legally dubious to attempt such a thing, to offer a downgraded version with the same name would ultimately be counter-productive to sales and degrade the brand image that we spend billions of dollars to promote.
I don’t mess with plumbing if I can help it, but I can say with certainty that the fabric you buy at Wall Mart is inferior to that bought at fancy dancy quilting stores. It’s pretty much the exact same operating strategy at work as has been mentioned with electronics and plumbing.
I’ve seen 100% cotton quilting fabric with distinct designs/patterns sold for $9.00 a yard at quilt stores such as Quilts Plus http://www.quiltsplus.com/ and for $5.00 a yard at Wal-mart. The thread count is markedly different - to the point that you can almost see through the Wal-Mart fabric it’s so skimpy. I’ve never read the end of the bolt to see if there are different serial numbers or anything - but no doubt the goal of Wal-Mart is to give you the impression that you are getting the exact same fabric for $4.00 less when, in fact, you are getting tissue paper with the same color and design scheme. A Wal-mart quilt won’t last 5 years with normal use let alone generations.
How did you know the thread count was different? Did you count the threads?
Or perhaps it was labeled with the thread count, making it absurd to think Walmart was trying to mislead in any way. Thread count is the major difference and less means poorer quality and therefore cheaper price. Walmart was simply selling a lower quality fabric for a cheaper price. What is the problem?
The “problem” if you will is that Wal-Mart and their ilk would have you believe that their prices are lower because they buy in bulk, have the best business model, are not unionized, etc. etc. The fact is they are not selling you the same stuff for less, they are selling you crap that should cost less for less. In many instances they trumpet how great their prices are for their rotten apples by comparing them to their competitors’ oranges.
You can tell thread count by feeling the weight of the fabric, looking closely at the weave, and by holding it up to light. That gives a one a handle on thread count without actually counting. Once you take the fabric home and start sewing with it, you can tell the difference as well. I have no idea if actual thread count is even in the fine print at the end of a bolt, I’ve never looked.
The unique problem with fabic is that there’s no readily visible brand name. So you can’t easily see that the, let’s say, blue mini-print with aqua highlights is made by Benetrix at a high end store and a seemingly identical fabric is made by Benitrax at Wal-Mart.
It was the same thing with power tools and such when I worked in industrial distribution. Black & Decker, for example, used nickel steel ball bearings in drills we sold, whereas they used plastic bearings in drills sold by K-Mart. There was no deception involved. There had different catalog numbers, for example. Industrial tools were listed in a separate catalog from consumer tools. But there was good reason to do this. A weekend user (the typical consumer) could buy a drill very cheap, and it would likely have as long an overall life as the industrial drill that was used five days a week in a very demanding environment and cost a hundred dollars more.
Regarding the true spirit of the thread;
We still haven’t managed to come up with any evidence that the same model/part/catalog number in two different stores will produce two varying levels of product quality in what appears to be the exact same product otherwise.
We’ve got all manner of posters that have said that other stores appear to sell the same product with less quality for less money than the other high-end stores.
This not the main concern.
The main concern is whether or not the ‘exact’ same product is sold at two different levels, quality and price wise, on purpose and decietfully.
I’m with you on this. Unless someone can provide evidence of two products, sharing the exact same model number, being made differently based on who they are sold to, I’m not buying it. It goes against everything I’ve seen in the various industries I’ve worked in.
Using the original premise as an example, I’d like to see something like:
Item: Toilet
Manufacturer: American Standard
Model: CMT - 550
Joe’s Plumbing Suppliy’s model: Comes with stainless steel mounting screws.
Home Depot’s model: Comes with plastic mounting screws.
That’s the proposition being put forward, and we haven’t been provided any evidence to support it yet. I don’t think any of us are arguing that what Home Depot sells as American Standard’s top offering is the exact same thing as the top offering you might find in another outlet. What we are saying (some of us) is that we don’t believe the two are being sold with the same model numbers in these cases, which could cause even the most educated consumer to purchase a lesser quality product than their contractor would purchase.
Actually, New Orleans, although I need to update it, as I’ve since moved. The joke is that there is no such thing as a left turn in New Orleans. While it’s not completely true, there are a large number of places where the method to turn left is to either go straight through an intersection, U-Turn, then take a right, or to take a right, U-Turn, then go straight through the intersection. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a city with so few left turn lanes at major intersections.
Combining that with the fact that you can get a Daquiri from a drive through window makes things a bit interesting.
