Are Harbor Freight discount coupons gone for good?

[jmc]

I am with you on the membership fees. Why make a customer pay to shop.

What do you have to disclose about yourself to become a HF member? That might be gravy income beyond the fee when they sell it to the spy in the sky.

 

[Ford850]

You have to watch what you buy on places like Ebay or Amazon since anyone can resell products on there. I noticed the same thing when I was shopping for band saws, with some HF items being resold on Amazon by resellers. For example, I see that mixer on Amazon being sold and shipped by "Products Are Us". If you look at their store front, it's full of HF items.

 

[sixdogs]

That's a fairly common Internet experience. There is always hope the inexperienced will take the bait and order something at a high price. I suppose there's always the guy that could sell on the net and then immediately run down to HF to purchase.

At farm auctions around here I regularly see used HF things sell for higher than retail price in the store. Beats me.

 

[Tinhack]

At farm auctions around here I regularly see used HF things sell for higher than retail price in the store. Beats me.

Some of the older stuff is better than the new stuff. The old drill presses and grinders are a perfect example. I have an old 3/4hp 8" polisher that will rip your arm off if you present and edge to it. Now, most of the motors on the new stuff are not much larger an apple.

Some of their older air tools were better too. I still have some I used on a regular basis in my body shop. They outlasted all the Ingersoll Rand sanders I had.

I bought a new right angle polisher air tool a couple of years ago. The foam backing pad on that must have been made of cheese. It crumbled to yellow powder in just one year. I made a new pad a couple of months ago because I needed the tool.

Forgot to mention: Some of their old tools are no longer available from HF. Other suppliers must have bought up the rights to them or something. Some examples are the air powered frame jacks, auto air conditioning tools and their old tool grinder.

 

[Oaktree]

I am with you on the membership fees. Why make a customer pay to shop.

Tell that to Sam's Club, Cosco, etc.

 

[MoKelly]

Last time I was there, I walked out leaving a bunch of items in my cart. I needed a few pairs of mechanics gloves, some air supply lines and some sanding paper stock. Probably a few widgets in there too--I don't recall. I had over $100 worth of items in my cart. They had one cashier and the line went all the way to the back wall of the store. No special sale and I was there early. I didn't need the stuff that bad. I pushed my cart to the side and walked out.

I ended up ordering what I needed off Amazon.

^^^ This!!!!

I cannot understand why businesses want to upset customers who are ready to PAY by making them wait in line. People want to give you their money - yet the business says “hold on, wait for 15 minutes cause we only have one cashier”.

Crazy.

MoKelly

 

[Tinhack]

Tell that to Sam's Club, Cosco, etc.

And Amazon Prime. But Prime is loosing it's benefit. It was great when I could get my order the next day or two. Recently, when dropping items into the cart, they say you'll get it tomorrow but when you get the shipping notice it may be 3-5 days out. I'm not sure if they closed the regional warehouse up in the big city near me or what. I'm seeing most of my stuff coming out of a Dallas or Michigan warehouse. And it's being delivered by USPS, not the usual Amazon vans.

Could be truck driver shortage related but what happened to my Prime Membership? Truck drivers are not my problem.

 

[fried1765]

I stopped going for many of the reasons listed. Often I just find it on ebay or straight from a vendor. Anymore I avoid amazon and only use as a last resort.

This is interesting....to me. I have to pour 2 extra footings for posts because the trusses were made longer than dwg so my front porch posts miss the original footings. Turns out I like the look so no problem.

I calculated about 5-6 bags per hole and i'm thinking about a little pad for my BH so I went shopping for a cement mixer.

Internet search brought up this from Amazon. It was labeled....generic imported mixer. $380.00

View attachment 697228

Then I went to Harbor Freight and found this.....$180.00

Looks to me to be the same unit....looksto me to be the SAME PICTURE!

View attachment 697229

That concrete mixer is a cheap POS at any price!
Probably will work for a project or two, before a problem arises.
An old used mixer would be highly preferable, but they are VERY TOUGH to find!
I have a very small 50 year old mixer, that I do not use, but will NEVER sell!

 

[MoKelly]

And Amazon Prime. But Prime is loosing it's benefit. It was great when I could get my order the next day or two. Recently, when dropping items into the cart, they say you'll get it tomorrow but when you get the shipping notice it may be 3-5 days out. I'm not sure if they closed the regional warehouse up in the big city near me or what. I'm seeing most of my stuff coming out of a Dallas or Michigan warehouse. And it's being delivered by USPS, not the usual Amazon vans.

Could be truck driver shortage related but what happened to my Prime Membership? Truck drivers are not my problem.

Amazon claims in their earnings reports that they have “over 100 million” prime members.

At $100 a member, that’s over $10 Billion a year. Each and every year. (Hopefully the math is correct as that is way to many zeros for me).

Wow.

MoKelly

 

[TractorGuy]

Looks like they are gone. No more freebees either.

The last coupons I had and attempted to use had fine print requiring a minimum purchase. It was for some straps I didn't really need so I left them on the counter and told the guy that was the type of deceptive advertising that will drive people away.

I have started looking at Home Depot or online to see if I can find what I need or want. HF is now the last place I look and I'm glad for the change.

The over seas connection is starting to fail so maybe we can get back to the days of "Made in the USA". IT'S GONNA COST MORE! The question will be can we do it and have quality.

Deceptive advertising, cheap prices, and questionable quality has become the way of the world.

I got scammed a while back on a rivet nut tool and inserts advertisement on FB. It said the tool was made in and shipped from the USA. I should have known better but fell for it hook, line, and sinker. After I waited over a month to receive the package that said it would be delivered in 7 days max I received a pack of 1/8" pop rivets I could have bought at the store for less than $5. PayPal floundered around and decided in favor of the seller since they provided a tracking number saying I received something. I had my CC company charge it back to PayPal and canceled my PayPal account.