Ordinarily I would prefer to purchase hard goods and supplies elsewhere but my options are limited and as it turns out there's a huge difference between northern and southern HoDos, especially the Cornelius store.
Hardware and lumber and paint is all about the same no matter where you go and since aggressive price matching is standard practice the buying experience makes a huge difference. Fun and games (lighting, window treatments, grills, assorted lawn and garden) are generally to the left as you come in and the work stuff (drywall, lumber, plumbing and electrical) appears as you make your way around past appliances, flooring, and storage solutions. I usually manage to find what I'm looking for (it helps that I actually know what I need and how to fix or build or install stuff) but when I can't there's usually an associate in the vicinity to provide assistance.
Not a big fan of having someone watch me do my own checkout - no scanning tool to read inconveniently located bar codes. If you don't trust me to do this then how about you just do the whole thing?!