Rural King;whats it like?

A Rural King is coming to my area. their website seems to put them way above TSC; is this true? TSC sure needs a run for their money is this area.

We just got one, I like it better than TSC its like a hillbillys wall mart

We have one decently close its kinda like tsc but with alot more stuff

We have both a TSC and a Rural King. Rural King is usually better price and more stuff. Tractor items are getting less and less but they do have ammo and now are starting to get into gun sales.
They also sell Massey Ferguson tractors. I bet the Massey dealer a few miles up the road doesn't like that !

Most of the time they find cheap realestate, like a closed wall-mart or big cheap building. Usually 2 or 3 times larger than TSC stores with lots more choices. The real deal is to watch their specials. Sometimes get oil cheaper than I can buy it from distrubitor for. They hire help about on par with wall-mart so don,t expect too much in that regard however ever now and then they will have a good older person from the farm that is good.

We have both in the same shopping area. I never go in to the TSC anymore Rural King. I buy my horse feed and bolts at Rural King along with a lot of other stuff. If Rural King does not have it TSC will not have it as well. When Rural King gets it in TSC will still not have it. At least the things I have needed in the past.
When I would go into TSC they would have at tops three people in the store. Rural King seems to have over a dozen people ready to help at any one time. When I want ten or more bags of feed two people put it on a cart and load it in my truck. When there is three cars in front of TSC there will be ten to twenty at Rural King. I keep thinking TSC will close soon.

We have had a Rural King and TSC for years. Rural King is cheaper and has a wider variety of products, but most of it is cheap chinese type stuff. To me TSC products are much better made for the most part. Some items both stores carry the same brands.

We have a TSC 3 miles away--never go there. Got a Family Farm & Home 3 miles away--shop there a lot. They have anything TSC has and cheaper. Rural King is 20 miles away--go there about once a month. Wife loves the canning supplies, clothes, gifts for grandkids, etc. Their prices on most items are the best around, of course half of it's Chinese, but so is everyone else. Much larger selection than anything else like it.

I too have a TSC and Rural King. Haven't noticed that much difference in quality. Big difference in how many things Rural King carries. I only go to TSC when I can't find it at Rural King, which isn't that often.

I was in a farm store in AZ called Shoppers Farm and Ranch and I was very impressed. It reminded me of L&M here in MN. I have never been happy with TSC, and when I was asking about water pumps this morning someone verified that TSC is way overpriced and low quality.

Depends. I live between Henderson and Madisonville Ky. The store in Madisonville is great, they even have guns now. The one in Henderson is a huge waste of time. They shoe horn as much stuff in that store as the do the one in Madisonville that's half again as big. In Henderson you can't get a cart down the isles it's so cramped. It's been bad for a long time but got worse a few years ago when they brought in a new manager who ran off all the folks who had been there a while. Even though the one in Henderson is closer for me I do every thing I can to avoid it.

Dave

Just looked at their website. Going to get one about 15 miles from me here in Florida. Anything is better than the TSC's we have here!!

jm hit it best,ours is in a former Super WM building,so gives you a size idea.It is a grocery store,garden center,pet food store,hardware,hunting,candy,clothing store.As far as farm related,bad as TSC is anymore,TSC as a rule has more and better selection.4-6 page sale flyer every week.8 check out lanes.But other then the sale idems,YOU HAD BETTER KNOW YOUR prices as they can&will rip you off.Like someone else said,a Yuppy Hillbilly Wal Mart.Walk you to death just finding things.

I was only in the RK in Champain and it was really dirty, but there is a ton of stuff. They give away popcorn so there is spilled popcorn everywhere!

Edit - BTW, I love TSC here in WI. I go there every couple weeks just to see what is on clearance. If I need something I go to Farm & Fleet or Menard's.

I have to say TSC is ok but some places have good stores as well as bad ones. I would like to see what others have to offer (Alberta) has only the one. Thats my way of getting the best idea as to my next visit.

Don't get too excited. Kinda like if Wal-Mart and TSC went to bed together and conceived a bloated baby named Rural King. RK, and a slightly better chain, Big R, have moved into some ex-K-Mart and ex-Wal-Mart stores locally.

RK has:
Free pop corn and a restroom if your innards decide that even being free the popcorn wasn't worth the price of admission,
better than average hardware selection,
furnace supplies and chimney sweep--"It's back there." [employee states pointing away from the entrance in a sweeping motion to encompass much of the entire store],
clothing and shoes,
mediocre lighting and electrical, and plumbing selections,
dog and cat chow,
automotive section with selection similar to Wally-World,
low stock of the same aftermarket old tractor/equipment parts that can be found just about anywhere, and a tattered, worn out catalog with some pages missing so if you're lucky you can figure out what parts they do decide to stock will fit,
clothing and shoes,
small selection of ag rubber--front tractor and implement tires, and some "tubes" that are in boxes--they are nice boxes
belts, for wearing and otherwise,
some lawn and garden equipment, parts, and supplies,
quality Pioneer couplers, but hydraulic hoses that don't last a year if left outdoors,
trailer tires--see previous comment about hydraulic hoses,
clothing and shoes,
tools to meet the various levels of quality standards of their customers,
batteries that will usually make it past the warranty date,
difficult to find "strike anywhere" matches,
low priced lubricants, some, such as under $1/tube grease have very good reason to be priced in such a manner,
candy, soda, and sofas,
items marked "clearance" that never show up that way at the register,
Did I say clothing and shoes?,
management that decides to move everything from one side of the store to the other, and move it elsewhere just weeks later, and,
a far too high of a percentage of employees in red smocks that couldn't find manure in a crap factory after working there for months or longer.

AG

Don't get too excited. But, it's better than our TSC. When I had a co-op job in college I worked in Paris, Ill. I swear they had a Rural King and it was huge. Seems like it was twice as big as the one we have.

The Rural King stores I've been in are nothing to get excited about. They're much like TSC used to be only bigger. Not as good as Big R or as big as Farm & Fleet.

I refuse to go in a Rural King store, only if can't find the item elsewwhere.
My reason, in about 2003 R K installed new batteries in my 1997 Dodge truck with too much acid in them, they boiled over and did about $2000 damage, they would never attempt to make it right. The OWNER of R K knew about the damage and would not get involved.
I should have took R K to court, even the ex-manager agrees with me.
At that time I was purchasing at least 20 Battries from them each year for my 250 antique tractor collection. MY advice, stay away from R K.
This R K instadent is being writen by Charles English SR at Evansville, Indiana

Dammit, I like your way of tellin the truth!!

I like rural king. Think of Wal-Mart and tsc having a baby.

F+F is higher quality and cleaner and it may cost more. I go to RK but don't buy much.

If you want to steal guns, go to RK in Champaign, IL. They were robbed 2 times and cops found 3 of these guns on the street recently in other crimes. It is a old Walmart store. But just south of that area, you would get robbrd before you could rob the store.

Define retail chaos...set it to words....then go to Rural King...and your words will come to life.

I will say rural king has a lot more selection then TSC but rural kings service is less than subpar. Rural king has a big clothing selection if you like seconds and poor quality, when I first started going there they carried the biggest selection of carhartt that I had ever seen now maybe two racks and the rest should be taken to goodwill. I think my feed lot is cleaner than my local rural king in terre haute. I probably go there twice a month or so and every time I leave I generally get what I'm after but I'm ------ with there crappy service and worthless staff. It's a nice store to fall back on but there is a lot of room to improve.

Rural King is a privately held company owned by the Beard - Melvin familes based in Mattoon, IL. They started in 1960. The Melvin family farms around 5,000 acres of which they own near Sullivan. They recently moved corporate headquarters to Florida for tax purposes. They recently hired an executive from Wal-Mart as COO, thus many similarities to Wal-Mart. The store in Decatur, IL is clean with wide aisles and lots of merchandise. Farm and Fleet is far superior followed by Big R. Still, Rural King is a good store.

We have a Rural King about 25 miles from us. Has a large selection of stuff but very low quantity of any one item.