Hacker News Reader

For home depot you ought to make sure its an in store product. They are starting to list the dropshipped junk that permeates amazon for some products at least. Same with lowes.

View on HN

Target is the same way.

And Walmart.

Home Depot has sold me a returned product that was missing parts before.

I've seen home depot workers lament on their subreddit how so many people buy a tool just to return it and steal the battery. Shrink must be absurd at these stores. They at least try and do something about it; I've seen people walked out in cuffs at the home depot when I've gone a few times now.

Even acting in good faith, the nature of their shopping experience (goods are undifferentiated, often unpackaged, often either very large or very small and self-checkout predominates) makes it easy to make mistakes. I'll willingly admit that I've gotten to my car and realized I didn't scan (or under-counted) an item at least once (and I'm rather compulsive about checking my work).

You want to save money by making customers do the checkout labor for you, you're going to lose some money on goods.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com