Lowes.com: Fail

Cooks Illustrated is one of those odd-duck magazines I can't seem to quit. The founder and editor, Christopher Kimball, is barking mad yet manages to oversee the publication of an engaging guide to the art and science of cooking.

And they review kitchen gear - the kitchen's traditional gateway drug for men.

Their reviews are right in line with my philosophy of gear - function over form, ease of use over style.

So what the hell does this have to do with Lowes?

Well, this month's issue reviews kitchen fire extinguishers and - having recently watched the mushroom-cloud detonation of a grease fire on Mythbusters - I figured I'd take them up on their advice.

Cooks Illustrated recommends the Kidde 10-B:C Kitchen Fire Extinguisher and even recommends a vendor - Lowes.com

It's less than twenty bucks and (serendipity!) I have two gift certificates to Lowes courtesy of my mother. The fact that there isn't a Lowes anywhere near where I live is beside the point. I have the interweb!!

Sadly - Lowe's website experience can be summarized as "there's no there, there."

CI gives me the item number, so I can instantly display the product I want (Item #: 121309)

Huzzah!

Only the website doesn't offer me an option to put this item in my cart.

Odd.

And it's telling me the nearest Lowes store doesn't carry this item. Why do I care? This is the interweb!!. The site's giving me a dropdown filled with other stores I can pick from.

They can't really expect me to...

But they do. I cannot buy this product from their website, unless I can select a store that stocks it. I blink through seven of the nearest stores, the nearest of which is hours away from my home. None of them carry this item.

So I can't put it in my cart and buy it. They list the product on their website and (last I checked) there is a vast and vibrant shipping industry in this country - yet Lowes not only wants me to road trip to their store, they want me to manually locate which of their hundreds of locations actually stocks this item.

Each store selection helpfully supplements this process with the equivalent of: Wrong! Guess again! after each selection.


As doing this for all stores in my region seems insane, I call their 800 number. After a suitably annoying IVR tree, I get connected with a rep. She verifies that, yes indeedy, there isn't a store near me that stocks this item - but she will check to see if there is a shipping option.

She asks for my name, address, and phone number to do this. Lowes will (get this) call me back within 24 hours.

Okay, I realize I'm spoiled by online vendors that ship products directly - but does Lowes really think that an online shopping experience that is shackled to the local inventory of their stores is what consumers want?

I don't care if the stores nearest me have this product - I went to a website so Lowes could find the item and ship it to me. The voodoo of whether it came from down the block or across the nation, I'll leave to their software. Just sell me the damn item.

But no, I have to call them and then wait for a call back.

When they do call back (predictably) I'm not around and they leave a message with E. They'll ship the item to my home but there's a UPS charge of $45. For a product they're selling for less than $20.

In other words - we don't want to sell you this item.

I realize that there's serious infrastructure issue in getting stores to pass inventory to each other for these kinds of sales - but cripes, they built the website to make it easy for me to find products I want only to discover they won't sell them to me.

Rrrgh!

Thirty seconds later, I discover that Amazon will connect me to a vendor in North Carolina that will ship the same extinguisher to me for $34 including shipping.

Way to go, Lowes. You should have just told me you don't have the item at all - I'd still be buying from someone else, but I'd at least feel inclined to give your site another shot.