by Jack Lee
The signs said, “Huge Parking Lot Sale” 3 Days Only! Our Biggest Sale Of All Time! The discounts get bigger every day. Friday 50% Saturday 60% & final day, Sunday 70%!
What the ad didn’t tell you is all the big price cuts were for items on one 6 foot CLEARANCE TABLE in this huge store of thousands of items. (Note) Clearance items are often discontinued, damaged, display or open box returns. You’re probably not going to find what you’re after unless you just happen to be looking for a left handed pink garden widget slightly freight damaged that somebody returned.
When I asked where all the 50% off sale items were for their largest sale ever the manager pointed that clearance table I mentioned. It was just sitting off to the side. Huh? That’s it? I was stunned. This was their biggest sale of all time? This is the 50% off Friday, 60% off Saturday and 70% off Sunday? A crummy clearance table? W-T-bleep!!! I drove all this way for a couple of things on a clearance table.
The other “sale” items were priced around their normal range of 10-20% off just like they always do. They were not subject to any further price mark downs for the so-called big 3 day sale, where every day (limited) sale items drop another 10%. Nah, these sale items were regular sale priced.
Who did this? Harbor Freight Tools on East Avenue. They are known for having low cost items that are imported from China. They have big weekly sales which come out in multi-page mailers. However, a lot of people were angry about this particular sale and I can’t blame them. In my opinion this was one of the worst cases of deceptive advertising I’ve ever seen. Two thumbs down for Harbor Freight Tools.
Like I said this is just my opinion, but it’s one shared by many others.
Their tools suck! If you buy from them you get what you deserve. Spend the extra money and shop at Skyway tools. They stand behind what they sell, that is worth a lot.
Toby, one of the complaints I’ve heard is their stuff is poor quality. For example I bought a box of four of solar powered garden lights and only two worked. It cost me $12, oh well, I guess you’re right …I learned my lesson.
Darn, I just bought a small shop-vac for my car last week. Used it once, but will hold onto the receipt.
Sheesh kids. I have purchased plenty of tools from Harbor Freight and had no problem. You have to make a judgment call. Admittedly, you have to know tools. I have purchased tools from Milwaukee (my favorite vendor) and have rendered just as bad results.
Here is an example of the bottom line: Pay $80 or more for a Porter Cable or Milwaukee random orbit sander that has no more life in it than one from Harbor Freight for less than half the cost.
Who the heck do you think Milwaukee contracts machining and manufacturing to? Duh. The US dream, sadly, is dead, dead, dead. Who killed it? Me?
But God bless the folks much better than me who do not think it so. We are a scrappy bunch.
Whenever I can, I buy Milwaukee, even though they make some real crap too. (Ask me about 5-1/2 grinder/sander attachments which they properly, abandoned.)
Pie the main thing was not so much the tools, we all know cheaper tools are not likely to last as long as industry grade tools, but it was how they ran this ad. That was terrible. It really was misleading in my opinion and they should stop doing that or they are going to get a bad reputation.