HOME DEPOT vs. LOWES
I went out on a mission to find a rather specialized machine screen this weekend. Neither Home Depot nor Lowes had it. Really no surprise, there. But the shopping experience was decidedly different. The first stop was Home Depot. The greeter asked me if I needed any help finding my item and directed me to Aisle 12. An employee there spotted me trying to find the screw and spent a good 5 minutes looking through the various bins and bags trying to find the exact size.
At Lowes I wandered directly over to the hardware aisle and stood staring at all of their offerings. There were two employees standing about 5 feet away from me discussing how often they got falling down drunk. Seriously, that was the topic of the day. Not once did either even ask me if I needed any help.
I shop at Home Depot about 100x as often as I do at Lowes.