A Rickel Home Center location in Menlo Park, NJ sometime in the 1990s. Rickel was an early forerunner to Home Depot based in South Plainfield. Bulldozed for a Target. Photo from Flickr user Jeffrey Johnson featured on Facebook page Remembering Retail.Submitted by 7nationarmy t3_121lxyb in newjersey
MickCollins t1_jdnoc7r wrote
Reply to comment by imchasingentropy in A Rickel Home Center location in Menlo Park, NJ sometime in the 1990s. Rickel was an early forerunner to Home Depot based in South Plainfield. Bulldozed for a Target. Photo from Flickr user Jeffrey Johnson featured on Facebook page Remembering Retail. by 7nationarmy
That was absolutely Home Depot's business model in the 80s into the 90s: straight "kill the competition".
When my family relocated to the shithole of Illinois in the mid 90s (don't get me started), there were a few Sears Hardwares around. Like an extension of the Sears Hardware Department with sometimes some extra stuff depending on the size.
On one long road (we'll say the Illinois version of Route 22, just shittier because Illinois) there were three such locations. Home Depot built locations literally across the street from all three of them.
Within two years all three locations had closed.
I didn't shop at Home Depot for a long time until I absolutely had to because nothing else was around except for Lowe's.
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