Home Depot seemed to have a tradition of good, practical engineering when I was there. Emphasis on solving the problem incrementally and reliably, rather than trying to boil the ocean.
(Disclaimer: Former employee)
This is in stark contrast with Lowe's where I would describe the difference as being akin to searching via Google (Home Depot) or by Cuil (Lowe's).
For those unfamiliar with Cuil:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/cuil-theory
If you know her please send some high praise from me. I am one of the people who has long experience with making things and knows several ways to describe common tools, materials, parts, etc but who hates to have to cycle through each of them hoping that the inventory management engine recognizes the product and lists it near the top when it delivers search results.
As a customer, I could tell that results from Home Depot searches delivered quality results by a simple search for a 2x4 of a specific length.
Excellent work!
Lowe's, on the other hand blows HD away with speed. HD could also work on their funky layout issues. On an up to date mobile chrome, sometimes it decides that I'm really on a desktop (no, I didn't hit desktop mode) and it renders what is nearly useless on a small screen.
Thanks for reminding me of this. I'm still using a Windows phone. It will be obsoleted soon though, and I had blamed most of the poor rendering of HD site on a phone on the phone itself since I commonly get the "unsupported browser - please upgrade" messages from lots of sites.
Like Best Buy, their mobile version is not good and borders on unusable. I had always blamed that on my own decision to use an obsolete phone as long as possible instead of on poor mobile website performance. I tend to locate the part that I need on my desktop, send a link or screenshot to my phone. That way I know which aisle/bin to find it once I make it to the store and don't have to waste time exploring all the things that I want but don't need.
Lowe's does throw up search results a bit faster but to me, the time wasted trying to find the right combination of terms to use in searching is not worth the small price difference between the two stores. I buy from Lowe's when I am looking for a specific brand that is not carried at Home Depot.
We recently had problems buying a couple of appliances from Lowe's due to discrepancies in their online versus actual inventory. If Home Depot had carried a similar model we would've gladly bought there but their inventory was slim.
Once we arrived back home, we tried to buy online again and it failed so we called the customer service desk to relate the tale about trying to buy one online, trying to buy one in the store, etc and the person checked inventory for us. She discovered that they had 6 of the model in stock and we could definitely buy one and have it delivered the next day. We completed the purchase over the phone and scheduled delivery for the next day.
That part went off without a hitch since I just had the delivery people roll it into the kitchen and I set it all up and swapped everything over.
Aggravating.
The website said "over 500", the store had zero. This is the equivalent of thinking you're a millionaire but finding out you can't even purchase a McDonald's dollar menu item.
* counted cumulative gain - a measure of ranking quality * query reformulations - a measure of search friction * complaints about search relevance * engagement with top search results
It's great to be able to define concrete KPIs that have an objective impact on user experience.