Warehouse stores are great for stock items,
Specialty shops are better for custom orders:
As you know when you buy in bulk you usually get a better price. The same is true for retail stores. If you have a lot of stores and buy a lot of the same item, you probably are able to sell those products at a lower price.
Box stores have a central corporate office that order for several stores; they lose their advantage when you order through their order desk. Specialty stores are experts in custom orders. They tend to have more experienced people, this can help you get just what you want.
Box stores often tell you to pick from their limited selection.
Specialty stores will have a wider selection of what they specialize in.
Installation:
At a box store you would have gotten a contractor from a pool of contractors. They are not trained by the store, they are contractors that need to find work through box stores.
You are not likely to get a contractor that lives and works in your area.
The specialty shop is more likely to be from you community. Not only are you helping the local economy you are more likely to have free warranty service for a very long time. If you have a front door installed and the lock sticks 5 or 10 years later;
the local company will likely have someone come by on their way home from work and fix it.
A contractor from the box store pool could be from 40 miles away and would not be able to offer that type of service.
Quality of service:
The familiarity of the box store tends to make some think the contractors they send will be like the people in the store. They are not trained and supervise by the box store.
You would just be getting a contractor from out of town and not much more.
From what I have seen:
A job I recently looked at where a box store contractor was used; the job was not up to standard quality of most skilled finish carpenters. It was a fiberglass front door, the molding miters were not tight, the door frame was not aligned well, and there was a large gap between the floor and threshold. A skilled finish carpenter would have been too embarrassed to leave a job like that.
My company, D.P. Door Co. does over 90% of their work within just 10 miles of the Rancho Cucamonga and Claremont locations. It is word of mouth that keeps the local contractors like mine busy. They are successful simply from making customers happy, they have to do quality work or they don't work at all.
[NOTE: While writing this were just awarded the "Readers Choice Award" as the best door company in the Inland Empire! We are so proud, I just grew another inch taller. ]
Why would a contractor have to do work for a box store and travel to work in another town? Travel time is expensive, to reduce cost it is tempting for the contractor pool to send someone who doesn't make much per hour. Higher skilled installers make more per hour, lower skilled make less per hour.
" We all love to go to Home Depot, Lowe's and Sears, but what made them successful is bulk buying not skilled labor."
Claremont Store: 909 625-6000
Rancho Cucamonga Store: 909 989-1477
Local Upland Number: 909 946-3934
Front Entry Doors, Patio Doors, Replacement Windows, Solar Electricity,
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