I bought shop shelving at Menards yesterday to help clean up the mess of unorganized tools and equipment that is my shop. When I bought it, I selected the particular unit (this one, I believe) in part because it had a prominent Made in USA logo on the advertising signage. This was the same sign that gave the load limit, dimensions, and such. When I got it home and got it set up, put some stuff on it, then went to recycle the packaging, I noticed a block MADE IN CHINA printed on the corner of the packaging. At this point there was no way I was going to disassemble it and take it back, but I was not happy.
Today I went in to Menards to double check the situation. The sign on the display shelving still says Made in USA. The boxes still say Made in China. I fetched a manager (for which I had to wait about ten minutes) to show him the situation, and to his credit he immediately called the merchandising agent (apparently the Edsal purchasing agent wasn't in his office, whom he tried first) and verified that this wasn't simply a purchasing mistake — the shelves were made in USA, and are no longer, and Menards is aware of this. It was unclear to me (and I think unclear to him) whether Menards is also aware of the signage problem, but he put in a request to find out whether there are new signs available, or corrections for the old signs, or what.
I did not request any sort of compensation, and I was not offered any. As previously stated, I am unwilling to disassemble and return the shelves at this point (although part of me certainly wants to), so it's not clear what demanding compensation would have meaningfully accomplished. I am somewhat surprised that nothing was offered, however, in the name of good will.
I'm not very happy with Menards right now, and this will certainly color my decisions to shop there in the future. Origin of manufacture isn't something that should be taken for granted, these days or any other days. When unemployment in the domestic manufacturing sector is high; when imports from China, specifically, are shown over and over again to be of substandard quality, to exploit workers, etc.; and particularly when Made in USA is being used as an advertising point on store signage, it's pretty important to get this right. To be clear, I don't think they meant to put up a false advertisement, but in the end that is indeed what they did.
I plan to go back in a few days and check the signage. If it's still incorrect, I'll have to decide what to do about it. It will almost certainly involve corporate.