Menards Sales: Love/Hate

[kcflhrc]

This kinda reminds me of when I bought my new Chevy Truck during truck month to save a few thousand. Then their truck month advertising went on for 6 months. That being said, I love Menards. Only problem the closest one to me is about 50 miles or so. I still make the journey once a month or so just to see different stuff than Home Depot. Just like now I need a new wheel barrow tub, I broke mine in a fit of rage. Cant buy just the tub at Home Depot, but you sure can at Menards.

 

[NoTrespassing]

I prefer Menards over Lowes and HD. They are within a mile of each other. My wife loves the rebates so she's the one that deals with them.

Kevin

 

[dstig1]

It is mixed for me. Menards and HD are right next to each other, but this HD is a bit of a small store. Even the full size HD that is on my way home from work does not have everything Menards does. But then Menards does not have some things HD does. And quality varies between them. HD carries Victor mouse traps, which WORK. Menards carries ones that apparently the mice find to be great snack bars once they lift that annoying metal bar off that is gently pressing on their neck, and why is that there anyways? ...For example. They both have their pluses and minuses, but I find I am at menards a lot more due to them having more of what I need. There are only a few Lowes in the area, and there is really only one that is sorta close, but certainly not convenient, so I rarely go there unless they are the only one who has what I need.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

wish we had one. I've only been to one once. They seem to have more stuff than HD or Lowes.

 

[mark02tj]

Menard's is my FAVORITE store!! I'd visited them in other cities when I'd go to clients and really liked them. When I first heard about the 11% rebate I was amazed that they'd do it on everything with no limit. They opened one about 15 minutes from me about 4 years ago when we moved to our current place. The first thing I bought was a Generac generator that was $950 at Menards (vs $1050 at HD, I think) with the 11% rebate. Really cool to get that rebate coupon on the mail!!

It's hard to beat a place where you can buy jeans (I bought some fleece lined jeans there for winter use), lumber, plants, detergent and groceries all in one trip!! I describe Menard's as a cross between Home Depot and Sam's Club. The staff is generally pretty helpful but some are more knowledgeable than others. But that's the same at Lowe's and HD.

I usually hate "reward programs" where you have a "loyalty card", but I'd kind of like to see Menard's adopt one. They could use that to send your receipts electronically like HD does if you pay by credit card. That way I could have all of my 11% rebate eligible receipts in my in-box and send them all together rather than having to go through all of the crumpled receipts that end up in my pockets. (Yeah, I'm not very organized! LOL)

I also like that they have "Made in America Sales" where everything in their flyer is made in the USA. They also will have a lot of sale items that are free after rebate. Amazing the stuff I've picked up like that!!

 

[Ford850]

Well, my joy for Menards took a hit last evening. It was a rainy day so we headed for Menards after dinner to pick up a list of things. I was disappointed at how many empty hooks I found for the items I needed:
Delta shower faucet cartridge - sold out
Delta replacement handle - sold out
Wooden clothes pins - sold out
Propane torch - sold out
Eklind allen wrench set - sold out

Mondays must be a bad day due to the weekend sales. Every peg for items I wanted that were sold out had a tag hanging on it, so it looked like things were already reordered. I checked the shelves above for extra stock, but no luck. I did wander around and find a few things I couldn't live without. A nice pair of rubber coated Kevlar work gloves, for example.

 

[ultrarunner]

Menards has arrived to the West Coast... kind of.

The new Outdoor Supply Hardware parent company is associated with Menards.

I asked when the barn kits were coming and got laughs but one of the employees transfered from Menards.

 

[BravoXray]

For a long time, I wouldn't set foot in a Menards store. Here's why.

For many years, up until 2012, I was the house carrier at a local plastic pipe manufacturer, and my trucks hauled many truckloads of plastic pipe to Menards stores. Many loads. They were always a complete PITA. With rare exceptions, we would have to drop pipe at from two to six or eight of their stores. You had to have unloading appointments at each store. If you could find a receiver at a store you were lucky, I think they all hid out in the break room if they saw a delivery truck pull in. Even if we only had a few racks of pipe to drop at that store, you were lucky to be out in an hour, so many times we would be late getting to the next store, and it would snowball from there. Then, we would either be late for reloading or completely miss our reloads. If we had to lay over to load, we missed a whole day and a day's revenue. Unless the wheels are turning, we aren't making money.
Eventually, after we refused to deliver to their stores, and no one else would either, they started shipping the pipe to their DCs (distribution centers). Usually, you could get in and out of a DC in two or three hours, but not always. Menards always tried to get trucks that delivered to the DCs to reload there and take loads to the stores for restocking, but often you would have to move to several different places to load lumber, shingles, skidded cement, fence panels or whatever, and end up being there for four or five hours to get loaded. After a couple of those fiascos, we never loaded at DCs after that. Besides, they didn't pay squat for the reloads, so we just refused them. We could deadhead 100 miles to another shipper and get loaded, and still be on the road in less time and make more money.

I go to Menards occasionally now, but only of I can't get it anywhere else.

 

[tim l]

I go there just to listen to the jingle.

 

[ultrarunner]

Delivery Drivers are often under appreciated.

At work some of the women were merciless and would let UPS, FedEx, Medline simply wait while on break or just because.

I told the big rig drivers I clock in at 4 am and gave them my work cell...

Delivery issues disappeared as they knew they could get in and out... It was so bad with UPS we would be dead last and sometimes not at all.

The Hospital Administrator noticed complaints stopped.

Many things are not complicated.

 

[BravoXray]

Delivery Drivers are often under appreciated.
Many things are not complicated.

Under appreciated and over abused. All too many shippers and consignees think a driver has nothing else to do, except wait on them.
I called a receiver a Menards one time, which the shipper seriously frowned on, and after a long wait on hold, when he finally answered the phone, I asked him what his job was. "Unloading trucks."
I told him my truck had been there for over an hour, no other trucks were waiting to be loaded or unloaded, and still wasn't unloaded yet, so do your f*****g job and unload my truck, or I'll call the store manager and talk to him about it.

Yeah, I got a call about that, but my trucks got unloaded pretty quickly when we went back to that store.

I was also known to have my truck leave the consignee and take the load back to the shipper after we sat there for a few hours and still not get unloaded and had missed our reload. I told them that they had plenty of time to unload it, so they must not have needed it.

Sometimes, you have to draw the line.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Wish we had a menards.

 

[mcfarmall]

I was looking to buy new fart fans for three bathrooms in the house. I wasn't prepared to choke down $120 each for all three at once so I waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. I learned that the model I wanted goes on sale once per year in February. The good news is that I saved every rebate check for that year and got them "for free" when they finally went on sale.

 

[TheMan419]

I live near what is billed as the Largest Menards in the country....... it is pretty big. I still prefer Ace Hardware.

 

[caver]

My version of their jingle is save big money,save big money, when you shoplift at Menards
It was inspired from my old hometown Menards. The manager got busted for stealing thousands from them. Probation Jail Time

Their 11% thing I guess is a way to get people back in the stores? They also figure small purchases people won't take the time to send in the rebate ticket. Then if I do get a rebate, which seems to take forever, I feel the need to spend it on junk I may not really need.

 

[Cycledude]

i am definitely a big fan of Menards.

 

[super55]

For me. All my dimensional lumber, corrugated steel panels and fastners all come from Menards. At least my store the lumber is 5x better then the others and I only have to handle it once. Get my receipt go to the yard and load it. Also there fasteners and hardware has a much better selection then the other.

Now when it comes to appliances or outdoor equipment I use HD almost exclusively. I'm a big fan of Echo power equipment and their appliance free delivery from online sales is very streamlined. I even bought a 2-post car lift from HD.

 

[tomplum]

I liked Menards when I lived in the Midwest. Lots of variety on building supplies. Couldn't figure out why you'd go to Home Depot and have to load up your lumber and drag it through the store. Of course, the guy at the gate at Menards was packing heat for some reason. Though I don't know if they are still armed. That was 25 years ago. Just an odd remembrance.