Harbor Freight Online Shopping - Some things to know...

Buying online with Harbor Freight - Just know what to expect.

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UPDATE 2/2/2015: I am posting an update in the coming days regarding HF contacting me about my experiences and addressing my concerns.
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Over the holiday I wanted to tool up a little "on a budget", so I planned purchases with HF (Nov/Dec.
I live rurally, so I conducted my purchases mainly online (for some long years now).
Just fyi, my tooling up mainly has to do with my motorcycle(s) and Jeep(s), some carpentry, and only a occasionally for work (electronics engineering -for which I am fairly well tooled up, not mechanics work/job).


This is a bit long, because I put it all in here. I had to break it into two posts.
I hope any of you potential online HF shoppers find this helpful.

I. Notable:
HF offers shipping under $7 via FedEx, even on large orders, except for overweight or oversized items.

That's about the only notable item I can think of. You already know about coupons and discounts.


II. Here are some things I learned, that I wish I had known ahead of time....

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1) Utilizing Coupons and Discounts Not Same as In-Store: Unfortunately, shopping online with HF you will not be able to take full advantage of their coupons and discounts. Not that you cannot utilize practically any/all of them, but you simply cannot apply them during a single shopping session/cart...

And I am not talking about similarity between using a 20% off coupon several times by stopping by the store several different times, or stacking coupons on a single item.... I am talking about having a coupon for "a item", another "b item" another for "c item" and so on.

What happens is once you apply one or two (or so) coupons (usually one to two), suddenly thats it. For some reason, even if the coupon you have is for another specific item, if you have other unrelated specific item(s) in your cart that you successfully applied a coupon to, then the HF shopping cart will reject further coupons. For instance, the result will be "not valid", but if you empty the cart and try it will be valid, OR if you buy the stuff in that cart and then start another new one, then it will be ok, etc. (I repeatedly tested this through conducted many online purchases with HF - this is not based on a one-off experience. It makes no sense, but that's how it goes at HF Online store.)

Wouldn't matter if they had some sort of free shipping, but they do not, so if you have a bunch of coupons on this and that wrenches and tools and such, you will have to create several small independent purchases in order to cash in on your coupons. By the time you do that you will have incurred so much in shipping charges as to potentially not make it worth you while, so you have to pay careful attention and plan ahead. (Do test carts, empty them, rinse repeat.)

Not so at the store, mind you. If you show up with a legit coupon on any item at the store, even every item in your basket, you will get all the discounts during that single checkout experience. Simply wont work at their online store. Sure wish HF had it more together in this regard - its not a small issue. It makes no sense and it really *****.

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2) Shipping Destination Varies (and I mean a lot): While HF ships via Fedex, packages may arrive EITHER at the shipping address OR at the Postal Address. You will not know which item will ship where until its enroute. Decision for where things actually ship (postal drop or the shipping address) happens after it hits FedEx. I had not seen this before (and I am no greenhorn to online shopping), it must be a HF thing.(?)

A little more detail on this: I won't get into the long and boring details, but suffice it to say that out where I live its very "weird"..., there are two Postal crossover zones, and no Postmaster delivery to the doorstep (in many areas, such as mine), only 3rd party, and so knowing explicitly how a company handles shipping is crucial for getting packages, whether that means on-time, or somewhere you know, or at all. And I do mean I have seen stuff disappear into where I believe socks go when I do laundry -never to turn up anywhere else ever again. I have seen and dealt with it all out here. Over the years I got it fairly dialed in.

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3) No Notifications Per Order Changes: HF issues no email notifications about unexpected changes on your order. You get the initial order verification, and then a shipping notice. That's it. Every other company I have done online business with typically notifies me of any changes, even eBayers do, but HF does not --NOT AT ALL, NOT EVER.

Here's what to expect....

- Item refunded: If they run out of an item and do not expect to be stocking it again, they will refund the item. You wont know about it until/unless you check you order online, and there will be no explanation in the order details. It will simply state "refunded". They will still be listing it as available and for sale on their website. You will not know you are not getting that item from them (ever), until you check your online order status.

- Item not in stock: HF will not indicate, either while you are shopping at the online store, or after you buy an item, or in your receipt, or via email, ...that the item you ordered is not in stock and is on back order. It may not be coming into stock again for a month, or several, and you will not know. You will look at you online order after a day or so and then see "Back Ordered", that's it.

They are happy to sell you the item and make you wait, with nary a word about it not being available. I had a rather significant item ...I only found out after I called them that it wasn't going to be back in stock for 6 weeks. How nice.

- Shipping something other than what you purchased: Happened to me at least 7 times now. Purchased 72 tooth ratchets, but they sent the 48T ones (several items). Got different gloves. Got alternate wrenches. Shipped a different torque wrench. Shipped the 10,000 rpm grinder instead of the 11,000 rpm one.

The ratchets, btw, are still listed on their website, although they told me over the phone that those are no longer made or available, hence why they sent me the 48T ones -- its the "new upgraded replacement tool now". So if you've been hunting for a certain tool, and it wasn't listed on HF, and then suddenly becomes listed again (exactly what happened in my case)... don't go ordering it thinking they got some oldies-but-goodies back/found in stock that you can scoop up. Ain't gonna happen.


Here's how it works (what they told me)... "if we do not have the item you ordered in stock, but happen to have something similar, we will send that to you instead. You are welcome to return the item if you do not want it."

Obviously no discretion is used for how this is conducted, so its truly "buyer beware". Out of all the screw-jobs I got from them, one of them was supposedly better because I got the item with the lifetime warrantee instead of the one without.
Woopee. I won! [sic]


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II. Here are some things I learned, that I wish I had known ahead of time....

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- Horrendous Packaging: I got a lot of broken stuff from HF. Luckily anything important made it okay (but some were scratched). It must be pointed out, HF has the worst packaging for shipping I have seen from any vendor, bar none. Ever. Like I said, I live rurally, and with lots of challenges for handling online shipping scenarios from/on my end, ...and I got online vending dialed in. Been doing this for many long years now.

I was a professional shipper at one time in IT (delicate equipment shipping - in fact I was the QC chief at one corporation), so I know what passes muster and what doesn't when it comes to packaging. I don't think I've seen worse packaging than HF (and consistently) from even the worst ebayer I ever purchased from. At least they are consistent...

Here's how it works: HF literally throws everything into a cheap box, then they put a few of those shipping-air-packs in there and tape and ship...
- one single strip of tape - over the long seam (weak),
- no padding on the bottom (so stuff on the bottom takes shots during shipping),
- no wrapping on anything, even if its delicate (crush, crack goes your stuff),
- no paper stuffing (where air-bags fail to fill), (slam, bang, crush...)
- never enough air-packs (more space for flying inside and banging during transit),
- delicate things get tossed in with heavy things willy-nilly (crush, snap, break).

Essentially every single item I received from HF provided massive movement capability for contents within the box they shipped in. Stuff got noticeably banged around horribly in every single shipment, and anything delicate got broken (except one item), including tool carriers (like if there were wrenches in their own holder kind of thing - those don't survive, and those are typically very dense plastic btw.

I am not exaggerating, I promise. This is for real.

BTW, I had other shipments from Sears, Craftsman, Lowes, HDepot, and several others over the holiday (Nov thru early Jan) -- no problems, no issues. Fairly Professional packaging, shipping, etc from all. HF packaging is so unprofessional its truly a joke.

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I am not posting this to whine about HF or my experience with them, this post is not about "complaining" to folks here. I'm a big boy, I can sort it all out, and I have.

I am simply reporting my experience, observations, and information that I feel others may benefit from knowing ahead of time. This is just the way HF conducts their online business, and I thought others might do well to know about these things. Sure wish I had. My excitement for shopping at HF is much more tempered now, and I am sure epstein, tooltopia, trident, betty's, barn/farm, tractor supply, zoro as well as many others I have found out about here at GJ ...are going to get most of my business in future, ...and my shop will be happy to see me not being such a cheap-a-s with my tool purchases.

I appreciate that when I have money to spend I can come here and get excited about buying tools, and get help making assessments and decisions. I always get really excited bringing new tools into my shop -- even the crappy ones (well, mostly). I do not appreciate not knowing when to stay away from GJ because I will likely get spurred into spending money I don't have on tools I don't need because I stepped in something here... but damn its a fun place. Great community here, ...hope this small contribution has some value for some of you.

2Hwks

BTW, I am not saying don't shop online at HF. I mean to point out some things I think any online shopper at HF does well to know.

I got some good deals on some 'good-ee-nuff' stuff there. I got had on some others. After the shopping experience I will likely only shop there now if its something necessarily saving me lots of money, and where "pitch and switch" wont be an issue.

HF simply provisions very unprofessional online vending in several distinct ways.
Forewarned is forearmed.

Thanks for the explanation. Happily, there is a HF local to me. However, I use online shopping to send gifts to family. I sent a cordless drill to my son when he lived in Boston. It went without a hitch. However, I'll keep your other information in mind.

You're welcome, Mark. Thanks for posting.

Receiving a HF gift in a non-rural area ...at least if something did happen, one could likely sort out a proper exchange with little hassle, and then its also an opportunity to take a couple coupons along for picking up something else... I never don't need something else when at the hardware or tool stores!

One time I used them it took FOREVER to ship, then arrive. It did the same weird PO dropoff thing. Total shipping time was like 3 weeks from CA for an extended air cutoff wheel.

Howdy Buck,
It probably wasn't in stock when you hit the submit button. The site has no stock-checking feature/capability, AND HF doesn't care if an item is even no longer supplied or they stopped carrying it... they will still maintain listings for many discontinued items and/or items replaced by some tool other than what you are viewing on their site.

They will simply either mark it as "refunded/back ordered/replaced with/etc" at some point during order processing, AND oftentimes will replace it with 'something similar' OR whatever the currently elected replacement tool is (even if its not really spec'ed the same.

You will never receive an email alert regarding refunded, replaced with, back ordered (out of stock), etc. You have to check your order status online to 'get the news'. There will be no details provided, but you can call them.

If you call HF they can tell you if something is in stock, but not the specific item. I.e., if they are shipping an alternative tool, all the rep. can tell you is "it" is or isn't in stock, and/or if "it" is scheduled for restocking, and when "it" may be expected to be restocked.
Just remember that "it" necessarily means the item# you ordered OR a similar item they currently sell in place of the one you ordered.
They can also tell you if something is no longer being sold even though its still advertised on the site (same aforementioned caveats still apply).

All of the aforementioned remarks about "how it is" have been thoroughly checked out with HF, i.e., its not my opinion, and its not just my experience, indeed, its what HF reps have explained to me about how it works.


::rant on::
Here's some of my most recent exploits...
Recently I ordered a winch from them. this was in Dec, and I used coupons to get a good price on it. In January it went on huge sale. I still got a good price, but the deal is, I found out later that its not going to be in stock until after February 6th thru 9th !! They knew about this in December, and yet put it on sale right after the holiday.

I bought a face shield. The comment section on this product had discussion about having to remove the plastic lining -- because evidently several yahoo's couldn't figure out it came with protective lining.
I got it in finally a couple days ago, and its not at all like the one shown online, which is longer. Its about at least more than 3 inches shorter (face coverage) and with a crappier head band. I wouldn't mind so much considering how cheap it is, but I swear, on top of that, AFTER removing the plastic protective covering ...the plastic shield itself is not clear! Its hazy plastic. Its totally useless - you could never work with that over your face.

Now com'on HF... really? How can that even half-assedly pass as in the neighborhood of okay to sell??
::rant off::

Anyway, had to blow that off. Hopefully, aside from useless ranting, this is not a totally useless reply post.

Cheers.

UPDATE 3/4 --They tried to help, but failed.

An HF rep had contacted me about my submitted reviews at their site (which for the life of me I cannot find - and I used no inappropriate or dishonest language in my reviews).

While they tried to send me proper replacements on a couple things, what I got was still "not as advertised" equipment.

The rep told me he could not control what they take off the shelves, even with RMA's and such, and apologized.

The bottom line is that ...while I commend HF on have an actual human being contact me and try to work things out with me, he was actually powerless to make anything right.

Lastly, two of the tools that they sent for replacement, i.e., sending the corrected actual Item#s I originally ordered for the 72toothed model ratchets, as opposed to the 48T items they sent ....arrived as the correct items, but still only had 48T. I looked online and they were still being advertised as the 72T models compared to their brother items with differing part #s.

I thanked the rep at HF, and mentioned to him that while I was grateful for his attempt to assist me, it is all too clear that corporate hasn't really empowered their employees with proper capability to correct these sorts of mistakes, including the false advertising on many items, and shipping replacement items with inferior specs than are being advertised.

While you get what you pay for, I would say that at HF perhaps you don't. Actually, I am a little excited about taking my business to other retail manufacturers even if I know I will be paying more, because now I know for sure what I wont be missing.

That's the update.