Online Return Policies: Lowes is Better than Home Depot
Updated 1/28/10 >> Home Depot changed their return policy shortly after this article was written. Read the comments below.
I was recently browsing around Lowes.com when I noticed this little advertisement for free shipping on all orders.
As it turns out all orders is a bit misleading. There are a number of conditions, like the order has to be shipped to the continental U.S., the items have to be < 150lbs., etc.
So it’s not quite all orders. It’s more like most orders. Even so, the deal isn’t all that bad.
Lowes Return Policy
A footnote at the bottom of the ad caught my eye: You can return your order at any Lowe’s store for your added convenience.
That’s one of the big benefits of shopping online at a site that’s backed by a brick-and-mortar network. If something arrives at your house and you don’t like it, you can simply return it to the store and get a refund or exchange.
A quick look at Lowe’s full online return policy reveals that the company has very reasonable return requirements… 90 days for most items and a few restrictions for major appliances and outdoor power equipment.
Home Depot Return Policy
I decided to look over at Home Depot and see what the competition offers.
It turns out Home Depot’s online return policy isn’t as friendly: Items purchased on homedepot.com cannot be returned to our stores.
What a bummer!
Home Depot also has many more restrictions than Lowe’s relatively simple policy. The depot has special rules for holiday decor, air conditioners, tractors, appliances, gift cards, furniture, wall paper samples, and more (really, there’s a lot more!)
Brick-and-Mortar Return Path is Essential
It’s hard to know how an online return policy affects a buyer’s decision process, but it seems to us Home Depot is really missing out here. With the big online retailers like Amazon selling more tools and materials each day, Home Depot stands to offer a big competitive benefit to their customers that the click-through stores can’t: local return.
Why don’t they do it? Perhaps because their IT infrastructure isn’t equipped to handle it, or because they sell different products in different markets. Or maybe it’s something even more arcane (like not wanting to flood their local return desks).
Whatever the reason, the competition is offering online return and we hope Home Depot will follow suit soon.
What do you think? What affect does an online return policy have on your buying decision?
P.S. You should pickup a 10% off Home Depot Coupon or a 10% Off Lowes Coupon before you go shopping at either store…
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4 Responses to Online Return Policies: Lowes is Better than Home Depot
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January 28th, 2010 2:07 pm
I don’t know why Home Depot wouldn’t allow you to return to the store, much smaller companies with many fewer locations across the US offer return policies to their brick-n-mortar. Yet, this probably goes back to alot of stuff that Home Depot also doesn’t do, offer, etc.
It can be 8am in the morning with a store filled with contractors and there will be one register open, yet Lowe’s will have 3 open. That always boggled the mind.
I continue to frequent HD, even though I prefer Lowe’s better.
January 28th, 2010 5:05 pm
Just wanted to shared that I just purchased from HD online yesterday. And, I researched their online return policy first. I found this policy:
4 easy ways to prepare the return for your online order:
1. Return the item(s) to a The Home Depot Store location nearest you:
Bring the Item(s) with a copy of your bar-coded shipping confirmation e-mail to your local Home Depot store for credit to your original tender or a The Home Depot store credit.
It is located at http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ContentView?pn=Return_Policy&langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053.
January 28th, 2010 6:53 pm
Amy,
This is almost unbelievable. I wrote this article over last weekend. When I checked the online returns page, I copied and pasted the text above (”Items purchased on homedepot.com cannot be returned to our stores”) right out of Home Depot’s policy… And in fact, I had seen this in their policy long before that and just hadn’t written about it.
I clicked on the same link today (both yours and the one in my article) and the entire page is different. I wish I had a screen shot of the original so I could prove I wasn’t making this stuff up!
I’m going to try to get to the bottom of it. Perhaps there is a difference in your ability to return items online depending on your zip code… or perhaps Home Depot made the change in the last week. I’ll see if I can find a press release with the information.
Thanks for adding this point in. If Home Depot did make the change this week, that’s a very eerie coincidence.
January 28th, 2010 7:03 pm
Alright, you aren’t going to believe this… but I checked. Home Depot DID change this policy in the last several days. I was able to view a Google Cache of the same page on January 18, 2010. Here’s a link to the screenshot of the cache I just uploaded:
Screen Shot of Google Cache for 1/18/2010 of Home Depot’s Return Page
And you can visit the google cache of the page until they update it at this link:
Google Cache of Home Depot’s Return Page
So, I guess Home Depot and I were on the same wavelength. Perhaps they saw Lowes make a change and decided to follow suit (or maybe someone over in customer service has ESP and they just knew we were about to write this…)