Lowes has gone through many changes over the last several years under the guise of “growth” and “meeting the needs of our customers”. From eliminating department managers to minimizing the number full time employees and finally implementing a “customer centric” schedule, all are to supposedly done to better serve customers. The truth is these changes have occurred with the intent to streamline payroll, save money, and positively impact the bottom line. What has happened, however, is that Lowes has spent even more money hiring and firing new employees, paying off customers to compensate them for poor service, and losing customers altogether. This model of treating employees like trash and constantly threatening everyone with their job (for which they are underpaid) under the facade of better serving customers will ultimately lead to the demise of this company. And for those of you that read this and think that Lowes is one of those companies that is “too big to fail” - just think about Sears, ToysRus, Kmart and all the other Goliaths that fell under poor leadership and the emergence of Amazon and Wayfair. Stock buyers beware!!
9 replies (most recent on top)
Been through retail store failures and liquidation. Lowes is next. Heed the call.
Circuit City
They are horrible. A worker died on the line and it took them 20+ minutes before they noticed. Not long before this very same worker missed an item and had a supervisor down on the floor scolding him within two minutes of his mistake.
In case you never read my prediction before... Lowe's is setting itself to be taken over by Amazon that will use the current stores as regional delivery and pickup centers-
A friend of mine works for Amazon, his location is Union he makes over $23 an hour, if they are looking to reduce hours for payroll they are given incentives. $100 cash, an amazon Echo or a ring doorbell. He got the job thinking it would s—, but really likes it. I don’t know what other locations are like. I’ve heard they were horrible
In case you never read my prediction before... Lowe's is setting itself to be taken over by Amazon that will use the current stores as regional delivery and pickup centers. We've all heard amazon sells more lumber tHan Lowe's and Home Depot, and wants to capitalize in the Pro market. It's a quick transition to pick up a failing DIY center and turn a profit while reducing costs by having more and closer distribution centers.
Ackman and Pershing does have a rep of cost cutting and trying to sell companies off in pieces, he tried that with Target a few years back but was not successful. Most times he is though.
In my store we ignore the customer centric scheduling. It simply doesn’t work. It ignores requested and approved days off regularly and it leaves huge gaps in coverage in many departments. Some associates will work ten or eleven hour days then wind up with a day that they work only four! It’s a mess and our store manager regularly tells us to ignore what is generated by the system and fix it ourselves.
The customer centric scheduling is a perfect example and symbol for the changes that have been executed over the past few years; poorly thought out and horribly executed. All of these changes are explained to us as necessary to help customer service and increase sales but none of it works like it’s supposed to do. All of this has made the jobs in the stores harder and increased turnover, which I suspect is the real objective. Lowe’s is trying to cost cut it’s way into greater profitability to boost its stock price. The fact that this eventually is a dead end for a retail company is being ignored. Lowe’s will eventually run out of things and people to cut and will drive customers to the competition in the meantime.
There’s a theory running around the company that our leadership in North Carolina is priming the business to be bought out. This may eventually all turn out to be bunk and conspiracy theories but there also may be a certain logic to it. Trimming the company down with payroll and expenses makes it look more attractive in the short term. In the long term it will probably just hurt the company’s reputation but if your aim is to sell or get bought in the short term then it makes more sense why they would push these idi*tic changes so aggressively. We’ll see what happens but in the meantime we’re all going to have to deal with more and more BS shoved down our throats will Marvin smiles at us on his insipid podcast.
Accurate and true. The lies eventually catch up and thats all Lowes management does is LIE!
We never hear about CCIC's any longer, and the myriad of complaints regarding XPO alone! I see ASM's field these calls every 20 minutes, every day. Our delivery service is terrible!
They phased out installed sales, and the CPO too - a complete disaster/ The CPO like XPO, have lost Lowe's thousands of customers that will NEVER come back due to terrible and horrendous delivery service and installation services. Two areas Lowes has failed and is failing.
Just look at the PSI and PSE programs. Complete abysmal failures!
The best part is, corp does things THEIR WAY, never talking to the hands on associates, and employeesd who know best. They take advice from no one, and roll out change after change that are just losers!
Yes, Lowe's will go under. Its just a matter of time.
This "push for pro" is also BS, and lies. Everyone sees it, everyone knows it. Lowe;s really tells it like it AINT!
'What do you mean we're sinking, the stern is hundreds of feet in the air!'
Marvin and co, probably