Still Insanely Local

I try to avoid all big-box stores though I'm not immune: Home Depot stocks a store-brand Behr wood stain that I find superior to more expensive brands. Lowes is a good place to find Rustoleum paint and cheap, mediocre-quality lumber for projects (though I found that a local mill, Siewers, beat Lowes on prices for trim...they make it themselves and it is superior). I hit the big boxes for good prices on things like cement board that I use occasionally.

In the end, however, nothing beats a small local firm, Pleasants Hardware. Their midtown store closed, a tragedy for those with old homes seeking obscure hardware. I recall how it opened, on generator power, and endured thefts of saws and generators, during the craziness after Hurricane Isabel. I bought my first Stihl saw from them that day, using it while living in town; my mom had a huge elm come down in her yard and it needed clearing before the power came on; it pulled down the power company's main service line!

Some Pleasants' alums opened Anthony's Decorative Hardware, a place I can still get wrought-iron details like shutter dogs and hooks, since Nan and I make our own working shutters for our house.
 
Though that great old midtown store is gone, a cooperative (Do it Best) kept the branch stores and the Pleasants ethos alive: you'll find well staffed locations where the folks know tools, supplies, and other products. Unlike a big box, an employee will come up and help you find what you need. Look around and you'll find True-Value and Ace hardwares. Go in.

Lots of folks shop online; I do, too when I cannot find what I need locally. Shipping is often free. Yet recently on two occasions, Pleasants had something I could not verify online and would have cost me to pay shipping. Just yesterday, I discovered that I'd stupidly over-tightened the bolts holding the bar on my larger Sthil chainsaw. The studs are set in heavy-duty plastic, not steel, and the threads stripped out. Stihl, knowing about dunces like this writer, makes larger-sized studs, but they cannot be had anywhere online. Finally I found a Web site, but then I decided to call Pleasants: they will have the parts for me, for the same price in a week, perhaps two. The same thing happened recently when I needed new bars for both saws. Pleasants actually beat the price from several online dealers!

If brick-and-mortar retail wants to survive in the age of Amazon, merchants need to provide something the giants cannot: bespoke service, deep knowledge, and instant advice. They need to remember you with more than an algorithm based upon your past purchases and some cookies stored in your browser's cache.

Some locals don't get this: there's a NAPA nearby with a notoriously grumpy staff, unless you have lived here all your life. They get a bit nicer when you pay them in cash (I always do). But usually I order what I need online or at a big-chain auto store. Some of them are franchises of Car Quest or NAPA, and I fast learned which have the best staff. They get my money.