Actual plumbers (and electricians, fitters, tinners, etc) buy stuff from supply houses, that’s why the selection is garbage. Some supply houses will sell to people off the street, some will not.

For everyone else, there’s McMaster Carr.

This is because the customers at Home Depot and Lowe's are primarily muggles. The wizards will pop in if they need something and it's convenient, but by and large they buy at wizard stores that stock the full range of fittings.

Said wizard stores sometimes have a handwritten sign taped up on the wall behind the counter dating back to the Carter administration that reads "Those in the trade will be served first"[0].

Your reward for being a wizard is having competent help at the store, and the fittings haven't been randomly distributed among the bins by a million prior muggles.

Electrician wizards similarly work with electrical supply stores, not Home Depot if they can avoid it. Carpenter wizards cross over a little more, but they generally prefer to work with lumber yards that deliver[1] and have halfway decent lumber[2].

[0] Yes, literally.

[1] I believe the box stores do to, but they charge handsomely because they don't really want to.

[2] 2x3's are crap everywhere, but the quality on anything bigger goes up immensely at a real lumberyard.

> [2] 2x3's are crap everywhere, but the quality on anything bigger goes up immensely at a real lumberyard.

This was once the case, but I've not found it to be true in recent history (in NorCal anyway). Lumberyards are getting 2x4/6/8 stock in roughly the same quality as the big box stores, and the only difference appears to be service and turnover rate.

Covid's effects on the lumber supply chain are lasting - many sawyers and mills have closed, and what's left is produced to meet a price point.

Because they are trying to make a profit and so have gotten rid of things that don't see much.

While sometimes I would make the argument that the lack of inventory is why people go online instead, in this case I think that is wrong. Their target market is home owners doing plumbing, and plumbing rarely needs those odd connectors. Frankly if you have small PVC/cPVC water pipes (as opposed to larger drain pipes) I would replace them with PEX where practical, and cut them off where not and install a PEX adapter. (I'd also do that for copper or iron pipes - copper because it might have lead solder but if it doesn't you are good for a while; iron because it hasn't been common in so long that anything you see is probably past expected lifespan)

It's not likely to be much cheaper but there is probably a plumbing distributor near you with a much wider selection.