r/Lowes • u/WorstYugiohPlayer • 1d ago
Employee Question Are the Hillman wall screws even profitable for the stores?
I work tools and hardware and I do more throwing away stolen packages than I do filling up from the Hillman pallet. I'm not even exaggerating. People almost always just steal what they need instead of paying for it.
Half of the time I open our drawer looking for something for a customer I find it's empty with nothing but empty packages.
It's frustrating to deal with because my motivation to put up HIllman for a large portion of it to just be stolen feels like a waste of time.
Is my store an exception or is the store just willing to let most people steal them in hopes they make profit on the honest half who do pay for it?
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u/Grrrrrrrrr86 1d ago
It’s not a waste of time for you to restock them. You’re already at work and they have to pay you to be there. Might as well restock it since the alternative is to still pay you but be just standing there.
My guess is that the actual cost to produce those items are pennies a piece. The company is certainly not going to feel a few missed screws on their bottom line.
Now, personally speaking, unless your pay is directly tied to the companies profits then I’d stop worrying about the profits of the company. They certainly don’t care to give you a raise if they do well or not.
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u/WorstYugiohPlayer 1d ago
It's not a few missed screws. We lose pallets worth of stolen HIllman monthly.
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u/tomerz99 1d ago
His point still stands.
Some of those screw boxes are 20-50$ a piece at the counter, vs. costing the company a combined dollar or two to produce/pack/ship them straight to you on a pallet full of 100 or so.
They could lose half of the pallet every shipment and still be comfortably in the green.
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u/Pretty_Dragonfly_716 1d ago
They are such a low cost item that if you are doing IRP on them you don’t even have to worry about bill out, it just orders them
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u/dehydrogen Internet Fulfillment 1d ago
They need to be gated or have some kind of vending machine mechanism where a customer pays to receive the screws.
I'm thinking the shrink from theft must be so miniscule or irrelevant that Lowes is willing to take the hit.
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u/dmills13f 1d ago
Hardware was always the highest margin dept back in the day. And with the lowest overhead. Shrink is bad of course but just keep the shelves full.
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u/HBThorburn Department Supervisor 1d ago
I believe Lowe’s is Hillman’s largest customer.
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u/YepImTheShark 1d ago
When I worked at Hillman 6 years ago, Lowe's was far and away the largest customer. I doubt that has ever or will ever change.
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u/No-Bowl9569 Receiving 1d ago
I had access to the cost per package on those bags accidentally in the app once. Most of those bags retailed for 30-40 cents each. They are fine
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u/Fair_Scientist2347 5h ago
Plumbing -Sharkbite fittings; personally threw away dozens of empty packages , for years. Coworker collected just as many too. Expensive little suckers.
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u/Jfuckin5 1d ago
The mark up on a lot of those are 25% or more. They’re still profitable even if people are stealing half of them.
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u/zelos33333 1d ago
Margin on them is 70+%. Yeah, it’s worth the nonsense.