This weekend my son Adam and I went to Home Depot to buy a heater for my office. On the way out of the store we saw battery operated closet lights. Adam said that he needed one and so we bought the shrink wrapped set of two.

These are very simple devices. They look sort of like a bowl turn upside down. They use 4 AA batteries and a flashlight type bulb. I'm sure you've seen them or similar devices in the stores you've been in. Like much of the consumer goods available today, these were made in China.

When we got home and opened up the package we noticed how very poorly these lights were made. The pieces didn't exactly fit together, the back was cardboard, and in fact we'd seen better quality from the $1 stores in our area. When we put the batteries in, the light didn't work and as a matter of fact, the metal holding the bulb in place seemed to be made of aluminum foil. Both lights were the same, neither worked.

We brought them back to Home Depot and got our money back, but that wasn't the issue. What troubles me is the level of quality that stores like Home Depot are selling.

I am not so concerned with the lights themselves. They were produced in China and China is a developing nation in the early stages of development. You'd expect questionable quality for a newly industrializing nation. Even Japan, in the early days after the war, was producing merchandise of very poor quality. Quality followed later, after the industrial base was established. That said, I'd expect merchandise like this to be found in the lower quality, discount type, dollar store type store.

What bothered me was that a store like Home Depot was selling merchandise of this level of quality. Over the years we've come to expect a certain level of customer service and quality from the chain stores like Home Depot and the other Home Owner stores. Whereas we don't expect much from Wal-mart or K-mart (or the other discounters) the homeowner stores always tried to establish the difference by claiming to be sellers of name brand, quality merchandise. Have things gotten so bad and so tough that in order to remain competitive these stores have to sell junk?

The other, perhaps more troubling, thing that bothers me is that these stores have more or less put the smaller retailer out of business. Now that they've come to dominate the marketplace where can we go to find quality? Or are we destined to buy junk? Can we expect consumer goods to be of bad quality in the future?

I am very disappointed by the levels of quality that I find in the stores lately. How about you?

 

I guess I've never really thought of Home Depot as a "high quality" store.

Then again, the Boston area still has plenty of small retailers. Some have very high quality merchandise. If I want a high quality lamp, I go to Nina's, not Home Depot; if I want a high quality coat, I go to Rizzo's, not the Gap; if I want high quality jewelry, I go to Nasr Brothers, not to Kay Jewelers.

Of course, it took me years to find these quality small retailers. I still haven't found anybody for shoes and boots yet, but I'm sure they are out there somewhere.

 

Warren

I didn't mean to suggest that Home Depot was a high quality store, only that it did at one time represent a certain level of quality that was above the typical Wal-mart, K-mart, Dollar Store, junk store. Now it seems there is no such thing as a level of quality.

Those types or specialty retailers that you have been able to find in the Boston area seem to have disappeared from suburban New Jersey. That is part of the problem. The bigger chains have dominated the market to the point where the smaller stores can no longer exist (for the most part). Now, there are very few alternatives but to buy from them and the level of quality that they carry.

 

I've found the quality gap most often in clothing. A month ago I bought 2 pairs of Dockers

 

Lowes, Home Depot, and many of the larger chains have been sucked into the Buy in Bulk from Abroad World to the point that quality is no longer of prime importance. Sadly, when it comes to hardware, even the smaller family business must stock the same crap.

 

Jerry,

The problem is more or less the same as it is in most other consumer goods businesses. In my day in the menswear industry, the market consisted of many small retaliers, each representing a different level of style, quality and cost. Today the market is dominated by a very few giant retailers who believe that everything revolves around price. In order to "feed the beast (the retail store)" at the price it can afford to pay, the buyers have gone off shore and purchased cheap production.

There are no magicians or secrets, the bottom line is if you are only willing to pay for a Kia you can't drive a Mercedes. The buyers are only willing to pay for the Kia.

The problem is that the smaller, independent retailer hasn't been able to compete and hasn't been able to survive. So all that is left are the giant retailers fighting with each other. As they demand lower prices from their suppliers, the quality goes down.

At one time Levi Strauss was the single biggest producer of denim jeans in the world. They had factories all across the country. As of this year, Levi's no longer produces anything. Today they purchase all of their jeans off shore. They have become middlemen/importers. In order to remain competitive they have had to cheapen their quality. Notice on a pair of 501s or 505s how much lighter the denim is today then when you wore them in college. The Dockers (a Levi's product) that you wrote about are now being produced off shore, probably in China, Sri Lanka or maybe Mexico. The quality that Levi's is willing to pay for is not the same quality that you'd expect from the Levi's label.

 

To be honest, my initial reaction to your original post was, "I've always been disappointed with the level of quality I've found in stores" ... except maybe for a period in the late '80s, when quality oriented specialty chains first started appearing, before they got watered down. A few are left, or have always been there, but you have to look hard for them. I suspect that most in your metropolitan area are in Manhattan.

I don't think a lot of people are actually willing to pay for quality. Most don't realize that anything other than the mass market stuff actually exists. Most of the rest just think quality goods are goods that cost more for no good reason.

Which is fine for them, I guess; it just makes things difficult for us picky people.

 

Whatever happened to the made-to-measure women's jeans initiative, anyway? It seems to me that technology would have been great for menswear.

 

Good thread Rob

QUality is always an issue. Quality is what makes my business successful when compared to the giant retailers Quality in materials construction and service. Every day Walmart expands it's China imports. It's natural that Walmart chase the masses.

This cycle has always occurred. In the 60's for example, Japanese steel imports were just hitting the US. It was cheap steel but the quality wasn't there. The Japanese improved the quality and look what happened to steel.

As China enters the marketplace with more and more product, most of which is not on a quality level that we are used to, I see a market. I see an opportunity to sell quality.

I wonder if the big boys will pick up on it. Hopefully not as it's always that niche that creates wonderful opportunities for people like me.


fltsfshr

 

The made-to-measure jeans were a great idea - I ordered a pair. There weren't many options, though - you had a choice of 1 style and several shades. They were too relaxed in styling for my taste, though the waist and length were great. Men's slacks come in unhemmed and womens' don't, so men usually have an easier time finding slacks to fit (I know, jeans dont). I wear a men's 31x36 (or a women's size 10 with a 36" inseam)...that isn't easy to find...everybody seems to think 33" is a tall and 34" is ultra-tall, so all of my slacks and jeans have to come from specialty stores. The quality usually isn't any better but the prices certainly are 1/3 more.