Harbor Freight Freebies

[aemeijers]

A little surprised nobody on here brought it up (that I noticed, anyway), but HF now has and is actually enforcing a minimum purchase to get most of the freebies from the pages of coupons most of us get. Not sure if the old coupons are grandfathered or not- there was some sort of sign taped to the counter about an error in the ads, but there was a line behind me, and the type was real small...

Oh well, I guess 40 flashlights, 4 little meters, and 2 bar clamps, are enough for awhile. Nothing good lasts forever. With a minimum purchase of $19.99, I won't make the cutoff more than a few times a year there. Today's coupon didn't have a minimum, but it was for those little plastic scissors with the applied metal cutting edges. Not sure those are even worth taking home- they look rather flimsy.

[LouB]

I hit the minimum purchase thing and the no more than one a day both a few weeks ago. My "local" HF is a 40 minute drive so I will not be going there for a long time.

[mike]

The 20% off coupon will typically outshine the freebie and make the freebie coupon not usable on that trip. Was good while it lasted.

[HeyBub]

The scissors are kinda like a Glock pistol: The business part is steel, while the handle is Bakelite (or somesuch - Google "Glock kaboom")

[Pete C.]

My area HFs are a bit far from me, but in an area I get to once a month or so. There are actually three stores in that area not all that far apart, so in the event they actually started caring that I made one set of purchases, put them in the truck and came back for the next set, I'd simply go to one of the other stores. I suspect they'll start dropping some of the restrictions on the coupons anyway when they realize it actually hurts their profits.

[Jim Yanik]

"Pete C." wrote in news:4d739d04$0$8203$ [e-mail]:

did you notice the "retail" price listed on the LED flashlight coupon? $7.99 for one(black painted),when you can buy them in two packs for $3.99(red and blue anodized).

[Ashton Crusher]

I've seen many of their products listed for as many as three different "original prices" in their sales ads over a couple month period. They sometimes have the same sales price, sometimes different.

I think HF is doing too many sales/%off ads. It's hard to take any of their prices seriously when the stuff is always on sale for 30% to 70% off.

[aemeijers]

I think their bean-counters agree with you, hence the new minimum purchase requirements. Sure, the freebies were bringing a lot of people into the tent, but most were like me, only buying one or two trivial items off their list at a time so as to not seem like they were JUST there for the freebies.

IMHO, HF needs to cut back on the dollar-store stuff, and stock a better quality of tools, and most of us would probably spend a lot more money there. Even for casual DIY use, many or most of their hand tools and power tools (with exceptions like the Twitching tool or same-as-Sears compressors) are sub-par. I'll buy consumables and blunt instruments there, but not anything that could hurt me or fubar a project if it breaks. And for people who make money with their tools, to whom time is money, there simply isn't a whole lot there for them. They need anvil reliability and repeatable results. I like the place, and will keep shopping there even without the freebies, but only buy there when 'good enough' is good enough.

[HeyBub]

Examples would help.

Were they the wrong color? Were the electrical cords too short? Did they play "Dixie" instead of "Battle Hymn of the Republic?"

[Pete C.]

Quite a few folks are happy with their HF air dryers, not sure why you had issues with them.