I know several folks in the flooring industry, guys that I've done business with for decades, and are honest. They find the whole big box store installed flooring business to be nothing but a mess. First, the actual installers are often far from the best, and the brightest. I have mentioned an installer's name to my buddy that's owned flooring stores for decades, and he will say, "how did you meet that junkie?" Well, I met his since I was doing some work for a customer, who insisted that the big box store had the best installed flooring deal, and there he was, on the job. My buddy then responds that the guy is blackballed by all the legitimate flooring contractors in the area, so reach your own conclusions. The other issue is that a lot of the big stores flat out lie, when it comes to pricing. I had a pretty large basement build-out where the homeowner insisted that he was getting a better price for a berber carpet install that I could get. I told the guy to have at it, since it didn't matter to me. The big box store that measured the job was about 10% cheaper on their claimed price per sq. yard installed. When the homeowner got the quote it was about 15% higher than mine. I took it to my guy who owns an independent store and asked him what was up. He took a glance and said, "it's simple, they quote lower per foot or per yard price, then add 20-25% more than they are actually going to install, when they show up to measure the job, to rip the customer off"
The same store owner will no longer look at, or attempt to repair carpet installations, done by big box stores. The original installs are so bad that the material is loose and humped, and useless, a few months after it was done. The store won't honor their warranty, and my guy sends a crew out, only to find that it is unrepairable, since it was cut poorly, and never properly stretched when installed.
As others mentioned IMHO, most laminate is shit, and not worth dragging home from the store. That said, I have had several jobs done where I paid my trim carpenter/ hardwood installer to do it by the hour, and installing 100 sq. ft. an hour is no big deal, for a pro.