You can find better selection, better prices, and better advice on the Internet. Also, Jeff bezos doesn't give me the "I hate young people" stink eye when I browse his store.
The local hardware store opens at 9:00am. Or 9:30. Or whenever pop finishes his breakfast. Because whatever I have planned for the day is not nearly as urgent as his crossword puzzle. That shit doesn't happen at Home Depot.
Home Depot (Starbucks, Applebee's, whatever) set both a floor and a ceiling for expectation of quality. For every crappy mom and pop hardware store that is poorly run, there is also an independent hardware store with kind and helpful people.
When I am traveling, I will go to Starbucks, but in my city, I know where the exceptional coffee is.
Interesting point about this: I recently needed a tool while visiting a friend. I found the nearest hardware store's website and was irate that they didn't have hours listed. So I called. And while they technically closed 90 minutes previously, somebody was in setting up a new POS system they were switching to. He opened the shop and I got what I needed. That also doesn't happen at Home Depot.
The problem is that most celebrations of small businesses suffer from a fallacy along the lines of (exceptional service can only happen at small businesses[1]) => (all small businesses will have exceptional service).
1: And that's not even true. Amazon (the physical bit, at least) have outstanding service. Whenever a shipment doesn't show up, they refund it, no questions asked, even though it shows ask being delivered at my office address (presumably lost between the reception and me). They've sent me two new Kindles, not literally no questions asked, because they did ask, and I admitted to having broken it myself by accident - they just didn't seem to care about the answer. Pret-a-Manger (a sandwich chain in London) has consistently blazingly fast service and unwavering cheery staff.
