As part of this weekend’s 3-day sale, Sears is offering a 50% discount on “all” Gearwrench products. The sale doesn’t appear to be fully functional online, but you shouldn’t have the same issue in-store. Unless you want to buy non-wrench or socket set Gearwrench products such as a Roto Ratchet or specialty tool. In that case, prepare to argue.
About exactly one year ago, Sears held a similar sale right before Father’s Day. Not surprisingly, the sale didn’t work online then either. Many of Sears’ past 30/40/50% off “all” Gearwrench” sales that were not online-only promotions only worked on in-store available wrench sets. One would think that Sears’ web team would have been given a dictionary by now…
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As mentioned, if you head on in-store, don’t expect to see Gearwrench’s non-wrench or non-socket set products to be properly discounted. When I tried to buy a Roto Ratchet at one store, the sales associate told me that “all” referred to just the pictured ratcheting flex wrenches. I didn’t have time to argue, so I went to aa different store the next day.
At the second Sears store, I ended up waiting more than half an hour while the associates and managers tried to figure out why that particular Gearwrench product wasn’t on sale, and how to discount it. They kept coming up with different explanations to offer me, but I persisted. “What do you mean? This flyer and Sears’ website says ‘all’ Gearwrench is on sale. This ratchet is Gearwrench. Can you show me where or why it’s excluded?”
I was told that I would be contacted in a week or two with the opportunity to buy the product at a discount if it were approved. I persisted, believing that they just wanted to get me out of the store, and said that since Father’s Day was right around the corner, I couldn’t wait.
Long story short, if you saw this sale expecting the discount to work on “all” Gearwrench products online, sorry, Sears doesn’t know what “all” means. Apparently they don’t listen to customer or manager complaints and inquiries either. Unless I’m the only person in the world to notice this blatant disagreement between what they say (all) and what they mean (limited selection of most in-store available products).
Eric
Good luck!
Justin
Man did you drag that out. Okay, all doesn’t mean all. We got it. Sears advertising sucks and yet it works on us anyway.
Obama said no taxes on people making under 250k a year and people bought it. And they still buy it when he says it despite it not being true.
IndyEngineer
I feel like you took one of my experiences with Sears and wrote it in this post. Yet like you, I keep shopping with them.
Stuart
Justin, the reason I am so frustrated over this is because this type of issue keeps happening over and over again.
I wouldn’t call it bait and switch or even misleading advertising. Based on my experience shopping at Sears and tracking their deals, I think that it’s a massive failure in communication between their marketing team and webmasters.
wantedabiggergarage
I filed a false advertising complaint with my state attorney general’s office. I also contacted customer service (and told them they needed to check our states statutes), they emailed me back and requested I call in the order, and they would correct.
So, what, they think that if I get them to adhere to their ad for me, I will just shut up?
KMR
Sears is an awful company. This happens so often that I cannot fathom that it is anything but deliberate. The same with advertising certain products at crazy prices, then changing the prices 24 hours later, knowing they gained a TON of viral marketting for the entire brand free and that they’ll still bag a good percentage of orders from people that won’t want to cancel.
wantedabiggergarage
Since my original post and complaint, I have noticed a lot of the Gearwrench tools I looked at, are now a few dollars off, “on sale”.
uthscsaedu
Stopped by a local Sears and I swear I could not find that $12 bit ratchet set.
I didn’t see the 56 piece set either.
jeff_williams
Every time you complain about Sears, I seem to have a problem with them too. So if you could just stop reporting your issues, I can get back to hassle free tool purchasing. 😉
In all seriousness though I had issues buying GearWrench this weekend too but I think it was related more to Sears.com. I purchased the same tools 3 times and I haven’t received any of the confirmation emails yet nor do they show up in my order history. Luckily, I took screen shots to hopefully get them to honor the pricing since the sale has now ended.
Stuart
If your screenshots show the order numbers, you should be able to check their status via phone or the website.
Unless you’re talking about screenshots of the tools themselves. It may take a bit of effort to get Sears to pricematch their recent sale. If it can be done, they’ll tell you to place the order and they’ll refund you the difference. You may have better luck in-store, but in either case it’s going to require some legwork.
jeff_williams
It took a few days but the orders finally showed up in my history on Sears.com. I’m using their “Live” Help to track down the status since they are still pending.
Oh and screen shots of the order confirmation not the tools themselves.
JML
I went into my local store and after a fruitless conversation with a sales person, I spoke to the hardware department manager, who over-rode the price and gave me the 50% off. It took persistence and pointing to the advertisement AND the sign on an endcap, but it worked.
But this has become so common that I no longer believe it’s an error. While I first thought they’re just sloppy and stupid, I now think it’s a bait-and-switch tactic, or just a way to get potential buyers into the store.