[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Menards? (Page 1 of 3)
Posted: 12/3/2012 12:06:43 PM EDT
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First time in my lofe going into one day, it recently opened. Everything is bunched in together and aisle are small. The store is like a mixed up Wal-Mart/Lowes?
Funny to see turn-stiles at the entrance  |
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it seems to me they are like the Wal-Mart of the home improvement segment...A lot of Chinese stuff...I mean a lot..... And HD/Lowes aren't mostly Chinese stuff? 
not defending them at all don't get me wrong...believe it or not it seems like Menards has more.... |
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We were just discussing it today.
Lumber yard? Just kill yourself. It is an exercise in frustration. At our local one you go inside, find someone to go to the kiosk at the SW corner of the building to get your order slip for the lumber yard. Then you leave the store and drive to the NE corner of the store and hand your slip to the "security guard" who opens the entry arm. You then drive to the garage door where they GO BACK INSIDE THE STORE and get the plywood you walked by to go to the ordering kiosk. 15 minutes later you go to leave the lumber yard area and read the sign that says "Vehicles will be searched before leaving lumber yard." Got a trunk? Open it. Got a camper shell? Open it. On your way to vacation with your camper? Open 'er up. It's this way in every Menard's I have ever been to. Their aisles are 90 feet high so you can't see any signs of what is located where. They also have a store policy that if you say "Where are the deck screws?" they can't point, they have to take you to the deck screws. With that said, sometimes they have stupid sales and some things are literally half price of Home Depot at regular price. So, got time to kill? Try it out. Got shit to do? Go to Home Depot. |
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In WI where Menards originated that was all we had for a long time. Menards kind of has a reputation for being a more serious home improvement store while Home Depot and Lowes cater to weekender DIY'er homeowner types.
For some reason lately Menards are starting to carry tons of grocery and other non-building products...and they some how offer pretty good deals. Last time there I stocked up on $2 pizzas and regular sized bags of Doritos for $1.70. |
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Used to have a deeper mix of hi/mid quality stuff, and used to be much much easier to wander through. They had some kind of corporate brain hemorrhage a few years ago and dumped most of the non-Chinese stuff, pushed quality as low as possible where they could and turned it into a rat's maze, with similar items across the store from each other.
I avoid them as much as possible, and with prejudice. |
| Must be crammed in an old building or something, the new ones are quite large and open. Worked at Menards for 3 years, far better company to work for than Home Depot and much better management. Plus they are a conservative company with classes offered to employees on conservative principals. |
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I drive past a Home Depot to go to Menards quite often.
It all depends on what I am looking for. Somewhat frequently Menards will have Made in the USA sales and they truly do carry a lot of American made products.  for whoever thinks
Home Depot or Lowes has less chinese shit. damn near everything in those stores comes from china! Also when I go into one of these any stores, I am not looking for advice from anyone there. Had way too many replies.
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I drive past a Home Depot to go to Menards quite often. It all depends on what I am looking for. Somewhat frequently Menards will have Made in the USA sales and they truly do carry a lot of American made products. for whoever thinks
Home Depot or Lowes has less chinese shit. damn near everything in those stores comes from china! Also when I go into one of these any stores, I am not looking for advice from anyone there. Had way too many replies.Was going to say this. How many stores these days have a 16-20 page flyer for a Made in the USA Sale? |
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I like Menard's stores. My family from the east loves those and Fleet Farm stores. Between the two of them, there's nothing you can't get done.
However, with Menards especially, you will come to an item you want on a shelf. One product might be decent or really good and the other will be complete dog shit. So if you know what you want and get the item made from a reputable company you are familiar with.....good. There are no "deals" at Menards. The low quality stuff is even low by Walmart standards. |
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Ace>Lowes>Home Repo>Menards FIFY Ace isn't in the same class. I love the ACE in Copperas Cove.....I can drive less than 1/4 mile, park within 20 meters of the store entrance, and get in and out after finding exactly what I need. The only complaint I have is the lumber yard products are overpriced. But, that's the cost of "right now" |
| I worked at one in the Quad Cities and enjoyed it. Pay was good, management was decent, and overall the people working there knew their stuff. For lumber I much prefer Menard's over Lowe's or HD. Lowe's is easier to navigate and might have an edge in the tool area. I am not a HD fan. I'll have one in town in a few weeks and look forward to shopping it. |
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Quoted: I like Menard's stores. My family from the east loves those and Fleet Farm stores. Between the two of them, there's nothing you can't get done. However, with Menards especially, you will come to an item you want on a shelf. One product might be decent or really good and the other will be complete dog shit. So if you know what you want and get the item made from a reputable company you are familiar with.....good. There are no deals at Menards. The low quality stuff is even low by Walmart standards. Yep, I got to all three of them near rockford  |
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I like Menard's. It's just another retailer. If their stuff is available at a lower cost for the same item, I will buy it. I have yet to have an issue with them....yes their store interiors are bland, but that's not why I'm there. They remind me of a larger version the old school lumber yards from when I was a kid....Fish and Wolohan's.
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I like Menard's stores. My family from the east loves those and Fleet Farm stores. Between the two of them, there's nothing you can't get done. However, with Menards especially, you will come to an item you want on a shelf. One product might be decent or really good and the other will be complete dog shit. So if you know what you want and get the item made from a reputable company you are familiar with.....good. There are no deals at Menards. The low quality stuff is even low by Walmart standards. Yep, I got to all three of them near rockford
My Dad comes out and wanders around all day long in Fleet Farm. So does my brother. I believe I did the same when I moved here almost 10 years ago.
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Menards here actually has some employees that know what they sell.
As for HD and Lowes's unlikely to find an employees that know his or her head from their ass. And hiring a HD contractor is the dumbest thing you can do. I laugh everytime I see a HD installation sign, it'll be overpriced and done wrong everytime. |
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Menards seems to have the best price on any project I take on around the house. As someone else said their nuts and bolts section makes the local HD and Lowes look like amateur hour. Their return policy was fine with me, and their receipt re-print system allowed me to return a ceiling fan that died almost a year later. |
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Menards sucks.
As long as you know what you're looking for, and what you're buying, it's all good. But their stores, as a rule, suck. They sell used/returned products as new all the friggin time. I've lost track of how many times i've been screwed. And then there's the roof. Their corporate office is in Elk Mound, near Eau Claire, Wi. This is where they make a lot of their products. We ordered metal roofing panels a few weeks in advance. Told them the planned installation date, no problem. The day before install, shit still hadn't arrived. "oh... yeah, we didn't get around to placing that order. it'll be here sometime next week." No fucking way. We had to rent a flatbed trailer, and drive 2 hours (one way) to pick up our stuff, so we could do our fucking roof. When we talked to the manager of the store, he refused to do anything about it. No apology, no credit, no nothing. "you should have ordered it earlier". We ordered it 3 weeks in advance, your people said no problem. Fuck Menards. There's a reason John Menard is THE richest men in Wisconsin. (Menard had a net worth of $7.3 billion in 2007, according to the Forbes 400, and is the richest person in Wisconsin. He is the 136th richest person in the world, and he is the 68th richest person in America). |
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Quoted: We usually go to Farm and Fleet, same store ? Quoted: Quoted: I like Menard's stores. My family from the east loves those and Fleet Farm stores. Between the two of them, there's nothing you can't get done. However, with Menards especially, you will come to an item you want on a shelf. One product might be decent or really good and the other will be complete dog shit. So if you know what you want and get the item made from a reputable company you are familiar with.....good. There are no deals at Menards. The low quality stuff is even low by Walmart standards. Yep, I got to all three of them near rockford My Dad comes out and wanders around all day long in Fleet Farm. So does my brother. I believe I did the same when I moved here almost 10 years ago. I really like the lined flannel shirts there, usually get them when the have the orange dot, red dot etc = x% off.. Most of the time there are allot of XL left over.. |
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Quoted: I think it's very similar spun off from a family tiff. I don't know about the family tiff part, but I do know that at one time they had an agreement not to put stores in each others AO, which is why it's hard to find one or the other in certain areas. I don't know if that agreement still holds or not.
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Fleet Farm and Farm & Fleet are not in any way related.
Fleet Farm is very much related to Huldra Arms. 
ETA, from the archives: Quoted:
We are not affiliated with Blain’s Farm Fleet. Very nice people. The founders, Bert and Claude were very good friends of my dad and uncle, who worked closely together in the early days (the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s) as part of the same buying cooperative. Burt and my dad were especially close and went on many buying and hunting trips. There weren’t many people he respected more. But we have always been two separate businesses. We did for a time share a few in house brands like Work N Sport, but they understandably needed to sever that arrangement. Currently Blains isn’t part of the Mid-States buying group and we really don’t have any contact with the current owners Jane and Robert Blain, who are more my contemporaries. Blain’s runs a solid operation and they have been growing, we wish them the best. As our brands are similar and often get confused. The better they do, it enhances our brand; and visa versa. Stewart Mills III Mills Fleet Farm Huldra Arms |
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Lowes>Home Repo>Menards Menards is ok but their sales employees are teenage girls(albeit good looking teenage girls) that know dick all. HD is a little better, and Lowes actually sends their employees on trainings. And they're sexist. They will not hire male cashiers. My brother was told that when he applied. |
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In WI where Menards originated that was all we had for a long time. Menards kind of has a reputation for being a more serious home improvement store while Home Depot and Lowes cater to weekender DIY'er homeowner types. For some reason lately Menards are starting to carry tons of grocery and other non-building products...and they some how offer pretty good deals. Last time there I stocked up on $2 pizzas and regular sized bags of Doritos for $1.70. Lots of beef jerky too. The gun show of home improvement. |