Ex employee with no axe to grind, but was through a couple of Lowes in central MD this weekend talking to friends and the parking lots/stores were amazingly empty. In timonium and white marsh I might have been the only person in the store.
I did see quite a few ex-installers trolling the lots and putting their contact info on cars for installs and delivery outside of the lowes line
That craftsman c-ap isn’t helping either.
Closing the stores made customers leary of Lowe's. They are always asking if we are going to close. Standing around during power hour(s) makes the customers uneasy and think that we have nothing better to do.
All we can agree on is that if there were one topic on here that Lowes corporate would want to muddy up it’s this one. Looks bad to retail investors if stores are dead at anytime, customarily so or not.
What the hell does science have to do with it? Retail comes from data analysis. That's math. There are no hypotheses here. Traffic down retail down. Debt up balance sheet minus, Balance sheet minus. Expenses minus. Labor minus. Improvement investment minus. Market share minus. Go back to traffic and repeat. The under capitalized retail death spiral STUPID! P--p Toast
Traffic is slow this time of the year, which in turn you would think a SM would use a brain cell and use that time to get ready for the busy season but NOOOOOO!!!! We're stuck in that "Power Hour" BS where you stand around twiddling your thumbs because there are no customers to help. Yet all you hear over the PA system is " IT'S POWER HOURS"!!!!!
MARV Get off your high horse and realize that people can multi-task and do things during these "POWER HOURS" or the stores will end up looking like a trash heap and then NO CUSTOMERS will come in!!!!!
It’s so dead that we are considering a bowling alley in the lumber aisle and calling oslg a botanical garden so we can charge admission; gotta make money somehow to pay those new managers salaries.
“The level of stupidity and lack of knowledge is amazing. Hey hey hey .... is your store slow ?? That’s going to be our scientific measurement of the companies success. Lol. Amazing.”
I guess I can almost agree that scientific measures are not being applied here. So let’s go with what I know.
Market level we are down in sales by 19.2% over last year, so that’s a 12 store sample.
Next, installed sales are down by 26% and leads for PSE are down by 1/2.
Good news is that our conversion rate is way up. About 23% over last year! But alas the increase is easily explainable if you look at customer counts; down 46%.
Lastly buy online pickup in store sales are down. It’s been a genuine attempt at a business for almost a year, but we did it before we had the designated area for pickup before that. Scientists would look at this point to see if there is a correlation between this fact and overall internet traffic to our site. I don’t have access to that and after Friday I’ll have no access to anything at Lowes!!!
God bless you.
The pucker factor in my store is 11 on a scale of 10! Our business is in the toilet! As usual, it’s all the associates fault. They threaten us everyday with our jobs. It’s really pathetic.
The Lowe’s race to the bottom didn’t happen overnight and the turn around will not happen overnight, if at all.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
The level of stupidity and lack of knowledge is amazing. Hey hey hey .... is your store slow ?? That’s going to be our scientific measurement of the companies success. Lol. Amazing.
I’ve been in 3 times, didn’t know any of the new associates. I wanted to buy some patio furniture but as an former employee, I’m not climbing on ladders or using power equipment to make the sale. Needless to say, 3 visits not one hello, not one can I help you, not even a glance. I’ve paid off all my credit cards and was going to buy the patio furniture with cash on my debit card. I have no idea how they stay open.
Northeast Ohio stores are dead as well. In 10 years I have never seen it so dead. There’s no customers and there’s no help on the floor.
Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising good or bad. All of Ellison’s cuts and changes are not being received well by the consumer! Menards and Depot are much busier. Ellison has taken a profitable company down in 7 months. It’s really a shame...
Its the slow season before a big holiday known for sales. Its pretty much expected to be slow at the moment. Plus, people are waiting on tax refund checks to buy stuff as well.
Granted, traffic in general has slowed down at Lowes. But seeing mostly empty stores right now is normal. This time should be spent prepping for the spring season that starts in a month and a half. Doing labels, cleaning flu spaces. Clearing top stock, purging receiving, etc. But instead everyone will just stare at each other complaining that its slow.
It all started with CPO, then XPO. Two roll-outs Corporate said "would better serve the customer" but actually was the opposite. Those programs were, and still are, UTTER failures. They have turned away more customers than food poisoning and now that corporate has all but eliminated customer service, theres no reason anyone should come to Lowes.
Foot traffic in the store has been slow since the first of the year.
Graveyard!
Yes. Add up customers. Multiply by 10 and you have the number of employees in the store.