Walmart Getting Serious About Tools in 2026?

[Aaron_W]

I won't argue with that point one bit.

However, I believe they would have improved their bottom line with that fore thought of an investment to follow through on....

Agree, at this point Walmart is just known for being a cheap one stop shop and that is it.

 

[JeepYJ]

Agree, at this point Walmart is just known for being a cheap one stop shop and that is it.

At this point? That’s been their whole Schtick since day one. And it seems to work for them.

 

[Aaron_W]

At this point? That’s been their whole Schtick since day one. And it seems to work for them.

We didn't get Walmart in California until the 90s and by then they were certainly going for cheap, but I don't think that was always their model.

 

[four.cycle]

Tools probably make up an infinitesimally small amount of Walmarts profits

More to the point:
Hand tools were always one of the lower margin items sold in a retail setting.
Traditionally, that's the way the pricing was structured:
Hand tools = you were lucky to clear a 40% net margin
Air freshners, car wax, chrome widgets = 70% - 80%
It's still that way, just not set up the same as far as distribution levels.
Not as much money to be made on tools as on laundry detergent, diapers, and coffee pots.
Retailer will always go where the profit is.
Tools are just a "sideline" thing they offer as a convenience in an attempt to keep all of that customer's purchases "in house".

 

[zendriver]

I don’t go to Lowe’s often but when I do, it seems like they have the same dust covered piles of craftsman tools. They had there the last time.

Walmart is a discount retailer and I’m hard-pressed tell a company that has 550 billion a year revenue. They don’t know what they’re doing.

Besides, we all know that nowadays,the name, “craftsman”evokes emotion and very little else

Besides Walmart slaps the name “hyper tough “on all kinds of inexpensive tools and sells them relatively cheap prices

That’s pretty much what Walmart does.

 

[whateg01]

Well, this explains it

1.4K views · 172K reactions | All gas no brakes faster we get out less money to spend . Guy math | Joseph Tyler Carr

All gas no brakes faster we get out less money to spend . Guy math

www.facebook.com

I really thought they were going to pull some hair from the wheel

 

[JeepYJ]

We didn't get Walmart in California until the 90s and by then they were certainly going for cheap, but I don't think that was always their model.

Walmart has always been a discount retailer. High volume low margin has always been their thing.

 

[Steel_Rain]

FYI, this little Hyper Tough tool is great:




It’s the tiny handheld blower Milwaukee should make using M12. It’s tiny! Compared to my Makita for scale:



I’ll keep it on the bench at home and may pickup another for work. USB-C charging pack and good build quality. I was impressed with the airflow for such a small tool but more impressive is the tiny size and great form factor. It’s my first Hyper Tough tool.

11:15

 

[LOW1]

Rightly or Wrongly I suspect that DeWalt refuses to sell to Walmart out of its desire to protect the perceived quality of its brand.

 

[milkovich]

Rightly or Wrongly I suspect that DeWalt refuses to sell to Walmart out of its desire to protect the perceived quality of its brand.

DeWalt is just a house brand for HD at this point. SBD painted themselves into a corner chasing this quarters numbers over and over while screwing all their other distributors to push more through HD. It's so bad, someone with the buying power of Menard's doesn't even bother with Dewalt even though they carry Irwin/Bostich/etc.

 

[WhataTool]

DeWalt is just a house brand for HD at this point. SBD painted themselves into a corner chasing this quarters numbers over and over while screwing all their other distributors to push more through HD. It's so bad, someone with the buying power of Menard's doesn't even bother with Dewalt even though they carry Irwin/Bostich/etc.

There's tons of DeWALT at Lowes

 

[JeepYJ]

DeWalt is just a house brand for HD at this point.

For some reason I always think of HD as Milwaukee and Ryobi. Lowe’s is more of a Dewalt store along with smaller chains like Ace and farm stores.

 

[milkovich]

For some reason I always think of HD as Milwaukee and Ryobi. Lowe’s is more of a Dewalt store along with smaller chains like Ace and farm stores.

I believe TTI has an even higher proportion of their business going through HD, but at least they treat their other distributors well. I think it's more like a Mexican standoff between TTI and HD, each needs the other whereas SBD and HD is more like an abusive relationship. Interestingly, ChatGPT seems to think Amazon is a larger outlet for DeWalt than HD but I kind of doubt that. There are 3rd party sellers and knockoffs as well as SBD and Amazon themselves selling on Amazon, it'd be interesting to see the real numbers. What I do know for a fact is that SBD quarterly promo prices to distributors are above HD's retail "on sale" price in many cases making it pretty pointless to try to sell 20v product even at the 10-15% margin online retailers try to survive on and HD moves about 50-60% more DeWalt than Lowes.

 

[liliysdad]

I can buy DeWalt at four different stores in town, each of them have a very large selection and competitive pricing, and none of them are Lowe’s or Home Depot.

 

[zendriver]

Rightly or Wrongly I suspect that DeWalt refuses to sell to Walmart out of its desire to protect the perceived quality of its brand.

Walmart is a discounter.

Why would DeWalt want to dilute their already cutthroat-pricing product market further?

 

[NYBODYMAN]

I had a lady I had previously purchased items from on FBMP contact me and say she had some literature I could have. Since it was right down the road I took a shot and grabbed two grocery bags filled with these. Some.cool old stuff!!! If anyone needs anything let me know I'm sure we can work something out.

 

[four.cycle]

OH! WOW!
@NYBODYMAN please get ahold of @Mark Stansbury: GarageJournal.com member and Site Administrator for International Tool Catalog Library.
He can take those, scan them, convert them in to *.pdf files, upload them to ITCL, and then return the originals back to you.
He has done dozens of catalogs for me - and many for other members. 100% professional at this stuff.
And archive.org does have a "manuals" section.
email Mark

 

[NYBODYMAN]

OH! WOW!
@NYBODYMAN please get ahold of @Mark Stansbury: GarageJournal.com member and Site Administrator for International Tool Catalog Library.
He can take those, scan them, convert them in to *.pdf files, upload them to ITCL, and then return the originals back to you.
He has done dozens of catalogs for me - and many for other members. 100% professional at this stuff.
And archive.org does have a "manuals" section.
email Mark

I meant to post this in the garage sale thread. Not sure how it ended up in here. I will repost there.
@Mark Stansbury let me know if you want to scan any of these

 

[tarbellb]

I just bought both the Hypertough Blower and Right Angle Grinder

Wow... Grinder w battery $60

Blower w battery $40

Gotta say the price to performance on these is amazing so far. Got 6yrs of warranty for another $7
USB C charging 4ah batteries are $40

$240, crazy

 

[Steel_Rain]

Hyper Tough “multi-head” drill V2 (installation driver):





Very small profile, compared to the mini blower:



Compared to the Bosch Flexiclick:



Attachments feel decent quality and remind me of the M12 attachments:





Type C charging, comes with a battery, the four heads and a charging cable. Build quality is a step up from prior HT tools I’ve seen in the past.

Two criticisms: no included case or way to store the heads. Secondly, they use only magnetic retention for the offset / 90d heads and the magnet could be better. The bits won’t fall out but it’s not a collet.

This is a steal for $45 bucks with a 3-year warranty. A true poor man’s M12/Flexiclick/Dewalt installation driver, but worth the money in my opinion.

 

[Steel_Rain]

Random, but I thought this was worthwhile to someone else.

If you happen to own the 12v Dewalt installation driver, the plastic organizer that's included fits the HT blower and installation driver:

DeWalt:



HT:



I know this might help 1 person out of a billion, but wanted to share for that guy.