Home depot, Lowes, etc. are more expensive for a lot of their goods than other places. It really pays to shop around. A lot of the big-name things - appliances, etc., they're right in the ball park with everyone else; prices really don't vary that much (as a percentage of the actual price; besides, you can check prices on these things from home.)
However, when it comes to a lot of the things they sell, they're more expensive than even the local mom & pop hardware stores. (At least around here.) Plus, at my local home depot, they're idiots. I don't mean that the way everyone complains about salespeople with poor attitudes. What I mean is that their knowledge of their products is poor. When a friend of mine applied there, they told him he wasn't expert enough in any of the fields. If that's a fact, then all but one person who works there must have lied through his teeth on his application. Example: I had a pressure regulator that I wanted attached to CPVC. All those little fittings, especially brass, can really add up pretty quickly. I asked, "what would be the cheapest way to connect this to this - what fittings would I need so that I don't end up with 7 or 8 fittings?" Answer: "It's impossible to connect that to that, regardless of how many fittings you use. That's got NPT threads, and this has (some other type of threads.)" So, I went to mom & pop hardware store. "Sure." He walked down and aisle and without even pausing his steps, he grabbed 2 fittings. "This is the cheapest way, of course, one piece is galvanized steel, but it shouldn't matter for that contraption. If you wanted all brass, it'd take a few more fittings and cost you quite a bit more."
Back to Home Depot's plumbing section a few months ago. (What's nice is HD is open til 9; the mom & pop store closed at 6.) 5 minutes hunting down the plumbing guy. "Hey, don't you have any caps for 3/4 inch PVC??!" "Sure, they're right here." "Those aren't caps. They're in the spot for caps though. " <checks inventory> "It shows 51 of them in stock." "Yeah, there are 51 of these, but these aren't caps. It even says so on the box!"
So, I left wondering how the fvck the person in charge of the plumbing department (his picture was on the aisle) wouldn't know what a cap is for pvc plumbing. Furthermore, how he had inventoried something else as caps.