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End of HF Coupons?

Baconator

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 1, 2020
Member Number
1740
Messages
314
I went on my quarterly HF run today and hit up google to find a 20% off coupon. Seems there are none to be found these days, and now they want you to become a member for $30 a year to save a few bucks on mostly their cheap ass flashlights and crap.
They did have a 30% off coupon, but only for purchases for under $10.

Ending of an era I suppose, theyve been limiting those coupons more and more, however I always found something to use them on.
 
Oh damn. Just tried a search. Now it’s worded as “20% off select items” so basically useless shit. :homer: I can see their sales taking a dip soon.
 
I'm glad I stocked up on cheap shit from them when I did! 25% off coupons on certain holidays were the best! I bought a couple 50 ton hydraulic presses, one of their 6x26 clone knee mills, and the industrial blast cabinet that way. :laughing: Plus I saved all my receipts for their class action lawsuit and got back almost $4000 in gift cards. :lmao:
 
Im going to give the ITC membership a try. The membership no longer needs coupons the discount on items is just applied and there is a $10 gift card with signing up, so for $20 for the membership Ill give it a go for the year and if it turns into a dud I wont renew.
 
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Toreadorranger said:
Im going to give the ITC membership a try. The membership no longer needs coupons the discount on itmes is just applied and there is a $10 gift card with signing up, so for $20 for the membership Ill give it a go for the year and if it turns into a dud I wont renew.
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Let us know if it is worth it or not. I suppose like most memberships you could earn back the cost in savings with one good sized purchase and then reap the rewards for the next year at basically no cost to you.
 
I had not noticed that they quit doing the 20% off coupons but I just went through a few of the latest emails that they send me. "Super Coupons" have now been replaced by "Instant savings"

https://go.harborfreight.com/sale/

Honestly the only time I remember to use a coupon is on big ticket items.

I also spied a commercial from them on a streaming service, Maybe youtube?, I can't remember ever seeing one from them before. It might represent a change in their business model, they seem to be trying to go after legit tool brands and making usable versions of specific tools 10-20% cheaper than the competition rather than pennies on the dollar like before. They are doing this 3 tier system for each tool as well with almost everything: 1. Shit, 2. Usable for one job, and 3. almost as expensive as real tools.
 
They put out a 15% off your entire order no exclusions around Christmas, I bought 4 44” toolboxes and used the 10% off first credit card purchase and saved a bundle. That’s the last time I’ve seen a coupon from them.
 
I just checked the app and there's no 20% coupons to be found. Between that, their prices climbing, and them trying to push "high quality" alternatives I think they're going the wrong way for my business. If I'm about to drop home depot levels of money for a tool then I'll do it there and save myself the hour of driving
 
No HF in Alaska, so no loss to me...

I wonder if that says something about the economy in China? It's been pretty accepted that cheap crap is a temp thing until their economy catches up to the first world.
 
I'll never forget when you assholes told me to print out an HF coupon to bring to Home Depot when the water heat went. See if they would price match. Trying to embarrass me or whatever. Guy took a look, scratched his head, and said sure. Put it through. :laughing:
 
subybaja said:
No HF in Alaska, so no loss to me...

I wonder if that says something about the economy in China? It's been pretty accepted that cheap crap is a temp thing until their economy catches up to the first world.
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Someone has to build the cheap crap. As the Chinese price themselves up someone else will build it. And frankly I'd rather give the Indochina set of countries my business than the Chinese.
 
Void_of_Light said:
They put out a 15% off your entire order no exclusions around Christmas, I bought 4 44” toolboxes and used the 10% off first credit card purchase and saved a bundle. That’s the last time I’ve seen a coupon from them.
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I suspect they'll still do a random coupon on the big holiday weekends.

Last weekend they still had the 30% off up to 5 items $10 or less. And the inside track was for $20 or less. Good time to stock up on consumables.


Everyone saw it coming. They started jacking up prices and then the coupons started to slowly disappear. More and more brands were excluded from the 20% coupon. The 10 different free items were whittled down to just the shitty flashlight. I probably averaged 3-4 visits a month before. I hadn't been there in several months since they started that shit.
 
billybob_81067 said:
Let us know if it is worth it or not. I suppose like most memberships you could earn back the cost in savings with one good sized purchase and then reap the rewards for the next year at basically no cost to you.
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Just logged into the ITC section for the first time. There is about 200 items that have a member price. With an end date of 2/25/21 so Ill check again after the 25th. Its obviously going to depend on what you want/need to buy but there were some good deals in there. Some small stuff, some big. These two jumped out at me as decent deals.

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Toreadorranger said:
Just logged into the ITC section for the first time. There is about 200 items that have a member price. With an end date of 2/25/21 so Ill check again after the 25th. Its obviously going to depend on what you want/need to buy but there were some good deals in there. Some small stuff, some big. These two jumped out at me as decent deals.
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chinese crap chain hoists like that were $40 on ebay a couple years ago

they've probably realized that there isn't really any competition in the "cheap shit right now" market so prices are gonna go up

nothern hydraulic was the only competitor I can think of, but they've always been the same shit with different color paint for more money
 
[486 said:
;n316301]

chinese crap chain hoists like that were $40 on ebay a couple years ago

they've probably realized that there isn't really any competition in the "cheap shit right now" market so prices are gonna go up

nothern hydraulic was the only competitor I can think of, but they've always been the same shit with different color paint for more money
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Pretty much everything HF sells can be found on eBay for less with a few exceptions where the sheer volume HF buys makes a big enough difference in price to make up for the cost of running stores.
 
arse_sidewards said:
Pretty much everything HF sells can be found on eBay for less with a few exceptions where the sheer volume HF buys makes a big enough difference in price to make up for the cost of running stores.
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Yup. I have found a few things that HF was substantially cheaper on because of this exact reason. Can't recall what it was off the top of my head right now, but they do have a few things (I think chip brushes was one of them...). Also bigger items that they carry in their stores that would be a bitch or costly to ship, due to truck freight, are usually a pretty good deal too!
 
billybob_81067 said:
Yup. I have found a few things that HF was substantially cheaper on because of this exact reason. Can't recall what it was off the top of my head right now, but they do have a few things (I think chip brushes was one of them...). Also bigger items that they carry in their stores that would be a bitch or costly to ship, due to truck freight, are usually a pretty good deal too!
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well something like a wire brush, yeah free shipping just means shipping is built into the price, making a $4 wire brush into $10 buy it now
buy two and you get to pay for shipping twice
 
[486 said:
;n316509]

well something like a wire brush, yeah free shipping just means shipping is built into the price, making a $4 wire brush into $10 buy it now
buy two and you get to pay for shipping twice
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On shit like that I started ordering shit by the gross. :laughing: Bulk purchasing FTMFW.
 
I've been having a hard time finding the 20% off coupons for the last couple of months. Last weekend they had the 30% off under $10 sale, and 30% off under $20 for ITC members. Since I was looking to buy ten pieces of E-track at $19.99 each, I bought the ITC membership and got a $10 gift card for buying it online. I ended up saving $60 on something I was going to buy anyway. The HF store is 5 minutes from my house, so it's worth buying the membership to me.

Talking with the cashier, he confirmed that they're phasing out the 20% off, and other decent coupons to push people into buying the ITC memberships.
 
The coupons and sales were always a joke - they were always for the same things and the "sales" were always "inventory reduction" or "lowest prices of the year" or such. It was basically just an extra fee for anyone dumb enough not to search out a coupon, but then you had to spend a bit of time trying to search out the best coupon or whether the 20% coupon was a better deal. HFQPDB made that a lot easier. Still it was a game.

Recent years they've really been coming out with some better product. Not just the ICON, but other house brands such as the Doyle and Bremen hand tools and the Bauer power tools. Definitely above the "Chicago" and "Pittsburgh" brands, but much of it is close enough in price to name brands that I'll spend the extra money for the support. I hear HF is working on being better about replacement parts and such, so we'll see.
 
PAToyota said:
The coupons and sales were always a joke - they were always for the same things and the "sales" were always "inventory reduction" or "lowest prices of the year" or such. It was basically just an extra fee for anyone dumb enough not to search out a coupon, but then you had to spend a bit of time trying to search out the best coupon or whether the 20% coupon was a better deal. HFQPDB made that a lot easier. Still it was a game.

Recent years they've really been coming out with some better product. Not just the ICON, but other house brands such as the Doyle and Bremen hand tools and the Bauer power tools. Definitely above the "Chicago" and "Pittsburgh" brands, but much of it is close enough in price to name brands that I'll spend the extra money for the support. I hear HF is working on being better about replacement parts and such, so we'll see.
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They got reamed in a class action suit a few years ago because it was proven that several items were always on sale and had never been sold at "normal" price. I had outfitted a last minute project for work with about $2k worth of shit from HF in the period of the CA claim and ended up getting like $400+ in gift cards from the settlement.
 
bgaidan said:
They got reamed in a class action suit a few years ago because it was proven that several items were always on sale and had never been sold at "normal" price. I had outfitted a last minute project for work with about $2k worth of shit from HF in the period of the CA claim and ended up getting like $400+ in gift cards from the settlement.
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:flipoff2:
 
Most stuff at HF worth buying only if its cheap enough.

If I have to pay more, I might as well add a little and buy a brand I trust.

I dont think this was a wise business choice. They had something that worked, now they changed it. Hell, you can buy a lot of shit with Amazon or Walmart thats delivered free, returnable, cheap, and saves you the trip to the store.
 
montrose818 said:
Most stuff at HF worth buying only if its cheap enough.

If I have to pay more, I might as well add a little and buy a brand I trust.

I dont think this was a wise business choice. They had something that worked, now they changed it. Hell, you can buy a lot of shit with Amazon or Walmart thats delivered free, returnable, cheap, and saves you the trip to the store.
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I'm giving it 6 months before they start spamming coupons again.


Funny, I just moved (signed the contract almost 6 months ago...) and the closest HF was 30 minutes away in VA. About 3 weeks ago they opened a new store 10 minutes from my new house. Now I won't shop there. :laughing:
 
They are getting too big for their britches IMO. I’m not interested in buying a $200 “Voltan” drill that’s a direct copy of a $220 Milwaukee drill. Their market has been for “disposable”, specialty, and large/lighter use industrial tools.
 
I have their membership. I only buy a few big tickets items per year but it's saved me money vs the cost. Last year I think i saved around $40 all said and done. My first purchase I saved $7 buck after the cost of the renewal.
 
Their coupons had become fairly worthless recently anyway. Read the fine print and it said this coupon can’t be used for the following brands, then listed just about every product line other than Chicago Electric.
 
Just bought their vulcan large welding cabinet, looked for days for a coupon and found nothing. Bought it anyways since the price of steel is stupid these days. AT checkout the lady said there is usually a 20% off coupon in the box with no expiration date. Got home put it together and no damm coupon. Sent HF a nice little email, we will see what they have to say.
 
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