Bill's Ace Hardware — Local services in Concord

Great hardware store. Better inventory than big box stores. Friendly helpful staff.

I'll add that i really hope independent hardware stores like this continue to be around. The big box store "discount" is misleading. They might price certain items 5% lower to appeal to price shoppers, but they gouge you in other ways. And the less competition they have they more they do it.

A recent trend I've seen at big box stores is reducing the variety of items. It's not that you can't get most of what you need to get a job done, but they have eliminated items so that you wind up buying 3 or 4 items and piecing them together when a single adapter would work better and is often easily available from manufacturers.

Another little trick they do is to make you buy hardware in little bags of 2 or 3 at time. Certain items are only stocked this way, like 1/4 x 20 nylon lock nuts. These cost about 5 cents in a box of 100, but the big box only caries them 2 at a time for $1.89, so that a dozen costs you $12 instead of 60 cents.

They probably have well paid analysts studying sales data just to figure out how to extract more money from the same purchase.

While the big box guys are constantly refining the dark art of how to look like a discount building supply while gouging your pocket book, Ace chains are looking for ways to better server customers.

Don't let the big box 5% discount on advertised items fool you. It's actually in your own best interests to shop at Ace. They'll take better care of you, you'll often spend less over all when you include all the small items, and if the big boxes ever put them out of business, well I think you know what...

BAD PLACE FOR VIETNAM VETERANS TO SHOP. Needed to replace the Flapper in the toilet tank. Seemed to be an easy fix. Always liked to shop at Ace on Clayton. Used to getting good help. Went to the plumbing section and was overcome by how many different Plumb Flappers they carried. A store employee asked if I needed help, and I sure did. I thought they was a standard size. He said some tanks are different and also changes with manufacturers. I didn't know the make or model # and he told me where it was located in the tank. Next day I returned with the old Flapper and the make and model number. A nice Lady asked if I needed help so she got me some one who worked that department. An older gentleman came over so I told him what I needed. Without looking at what I brought in he grabbed a Flapper and said this was the one. I could see it was clearly the wrong size. I told him I had the old one and all the information. He said take it or leave it, that he had been working for 40 years and he knew. It quickly became a shouting match, and I was wearing my Vietnam Veteran cap. The Lady I first saw intervened and I told her I had the manufacturers info.When she said to him the brand was an Elger he changed his tune and started looking elsewhere. At that point I was so tired of arguing with this guy I left the store and...

My husband and I usually love this store, but yesterday (6/18), we stopped in for paint. The woman working the paint studio (Emma, I think) was helping the customer ahead of us. There was some issue with the paint machine that required calling over the man who either installed the paint program or designed it (unclear exactly). The man, whose name we didn’t catch, came over and was so incredibly rude and condescending to Emma (and another woman who showed up to help briefly) the entire time he “helped.” My husband and I were shocked by how terribly he treated his co-worker (and in front of customers no less). It was totally uncalled for — he could’ve resolved the issue or explained the process to her in a professional, collegial way, but he was aggressive and patronizing. He also complained about the store and the store’s failure to train people (referring to his co-worker standing right there) correctly (maybe that’s fair but it was unprofessional to say in front of his co-worker and customers). Emma remained super helpful and pleasant despite all of this and our paint turned out fantastic. We were just shocked by how rude and unprofessional the man (wish I’d been able to see his name) was. At any rate, it was disappointing and I hope someone will take the time to...