Lowe’s has launched 2 new pink tool sets, and there’s indication that this is just the start and that a selection of standalone tools are on the way.
The new Kobalt tool offerings include a 20pc set with drawer-friendly case, and a portable 158pc set. Both assortments are also available with blue handles.
The Kobalt 20pc set comes with the following tools:
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- Diagonal cutters
- Long nose pliers
- Scissors (small/precision type)
- Bottle opener
- Adjustable wrench
- Utility knife
- 2 precision screwdrivers
- 10oz claw hammer
- Compact bubble level
- Multi-bit screwdriver
- 12ft tape measure
By my count there are 12 tools. Add 5 pieces for the multi-bit screwdriver, and the included case, and I guess that’s where the 20 pieces come from.
Price: $40
The 158pc set has more stuff and is kitted with a portable tool case.
Here’s what it comes with:
- 10oz claw hammer
- 12ft tape measure
- 9″ magnetic torpedo level
- Utility knife
- 100pc hardware kit
- Slip joint pliers
- Long nose pliers
- Screwdriver handle
- (20) 1/4″ hex bits
- (6) nut driver bits
- Scissors
- 4 precision screwdrivers
- Adjustable wrench
- 6pc SAE hex key set
- 6pc metric hex key set
Price: $60
It looks like Lowe’s launched the same Kobalt tools with the same lifetime warranty, but in pink.
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At this time you can buy the same tool sets in blue at Lowe’s stores, but they have plenty of inventory of the pink sets available for online sales. You can choose between in-store pickup or free shipping with orders $45 and up.
I like that the 20pc tool set case is designed to fit inside standard kitchen drawers, and it can also fit in many desk, workbench, and tool chest or cabinet drawers. This looks convenient for a lot of DIYers, homeowners, and others who have common tool needs.
Josh H
That honestly looks like a good combo of tools to have in a few places around a property, it’s super annoying when you need a light duty pair of pliers for something and have to schlep to the garage for them.
Off topic, but I saw a story come across my feed about a Milwaukee Tool employee stealing $1.1 million in tools from the company. Have you seen anything about that yet Stuart?
Stuart
I saw the same news. It seems an employee placed orders to be delivered to their home, each time erasing records from the system. One news story suggested they were selling the tools.
Bonnie
I can’t imagine they stole $1.1 million for personal use. Even handing them out to friends and family that’s just so much stuff.
TomD
There’s a joke here about how it was two mowers and an MX fuel battery …
Daniel
If it was a Snap-On, could have just been a torque wrench and a few sockets. 😀
Scott K
I totally agree – both sets look like they have well thought out assortments. The drawer organizer is a great idea. Other than a hammer, that’s pretty close to what I keep in a small bin in a kitchen drawer. They aren’t my favorite tools but they work well enough and are conveniently located. I guess counting driver bits as separate tools is reasonable, but counting the organizer or carrier as one is a stretch.
TonyT
Where’s the Hello Kitty version?
(BTW, a lot of Hello Kitty branded merchandise is high quality)
KokoTheTalkingApe
So these are the first kits of their kind that I’ve seen where at least some of the tools aren’t actual garbage. I don’t have many Kobalt tools, but so far they’ve been usable.
I hear painting your tools pink is a sure way to keep them from being stolen by your fellow workers. But maybe that’s not the goal here!
Saulac
How much effort to pull off something like this? Are all the tools and the case made in the same factory, or some coordinations must involve? I was in manufacturing at some point and learn color coordinations are not simple as it may seem. You may make too many/few of something and end up with extra.
Stuart
I imagine it’s not difficult, but there are cost obstacles.
Derek
Looks like it will fit just fine in an Ikea Alex drawer unit. Might have to pick one up and remove the couple screwdrivers in our kitchen junk drawer.
OldDominionDIYer
That’s their angle? Lowes’ marketing is killing me! Catering to the 1% never ends well.
Stuart
The indignation!! Don’t worry, I’m sure we can find you some tools is nice monotone gray.
As long as they don’t pump out colors as often as Yeti or Stanley Quencher, there’s nothing to get grumpy over.
OldDominionDIYer
It’s just sad, Maybe Lowes can get with Cracker Barrel and do a redesign on their logo, then get Dylan Mulvaney to “show-ff their new Kobalt “pinkies”.
“HD experienced significant total sales growth from $132.1 billion to $152.7 billion. Lowe’s saw its total sales decline from $89.6 billion to $86.4 billion during the same period. Home Depot’s market share grew to 64% by 2023, solidifying its dominant position in the industry.”
You still think I’m off the mark Stuart? I get it, novelty items are everywhere, even pink handguns, but that’s not the point. The real issue is that Lowe’s seems to have lost its direction, and their solution is to market to the margins? Come on, we all know where that’s headed, and it’s not a good ending.
Stuart
Amazon is selling thousands of pink tool sets every month https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pink+tool+set&tag=toolguyd-20 .
Lowe’s saw an opportunity to make money, as with other recent products.
The 1%? Cracker Barrel? “We know where this is headed.” You might be drawing unwarranted connections.
Look over Lowe’s social media content – https://www.instagram.com/loweshomeimprovement – and you’ll realize that these tool sets fit in well with some of their targeted demographics.
Lowe’s gives us lots of things to complain about. I don’t see how pink tools are offensive.
zchris87v
This is what you take issue with? Did you write a letter to Ruger when they announced a pink-frame .380 as well? If Kobalt had announced they were changing the logo to get rid or the nut-shape in the name, sure.
John
This might be a good time to recall that 100 years ago in this country the color trends for boys and girls were opposite from what they are today:
https://www.britannica.com/story/has-pink-always-been-a-girly-color
Bonnie
Not to mention that the idea of gendering color is pretty silly to begin with.
Stuart
Pink tool boxes went viral at Lowe’s. The pink buckets sold out. Pink tools seem to sell well at Amazon and elsewhere.
If there’s no interest, that’ll be made very clear over the next few weeks or months.
Having this as an option, even if only online, is good.
I also spotted the multi-bit screwdriver in green.
moe
even the article claims that for adults pink was for women and blue for men
“Boys and girls were dressed like miniature men and women instead of uniformly in children’s dresses. Pink became the girls’ color, blue the boys’.”
Joe E.
I own a set of pink MAC screwdrivers that were some sort of Breast Cancer Awareness limited offer. I like ‘em!
I might buy my wife this pink Kobalt set so she’ll stop taking tools out of my box and not put them back where they go. Great idea!
Scotty.
Looks better than those Target kits mentioned a couple weeks ago.
zchris87v
Exactly. Over half the cost for a better assortment and a quality brand.
Al-another-Al
As long as the pink stuff isn’t shite with a paint job. I hate that there is so much marketing to make something pink and charge more, or make it pink and deliver less.
Razors and underarm deodorants are still a strange form of pink tax for women.
If you like pink, seafoam green, polished chrome…more power to you. It’s better than an empty drawer.
My next couple of garage projects are painting red Craftsman cabinets black. Then disassembling all my battery powered tools and painting the yellow parts grey. Just for aesthetics.
Stuart
I checked that first – pink or blue, the tool sets are the same price. If not, this post would have read very differently.
Will
Pink and seafoam green, that reminds me of the ’90s. Back when Yamaha even put pink on their dirt bikes. I had pink Oakleys, it was cool for guys to wear pink for a while then and in the ’80s, but only for a limited time.
JoeM
Maybe it’s a bias due to being colourblind, maybe it’s some twitch in the back of my head. But I will never, ever, understand the need to recolour tools within the same brand.
I’ve seen charity versions for breast cancer awareness, and all sorts of Women’s Rights/Equality/Etc. charities… and for those I think it’s a waste of money and resources recolouring the tools. You can achieve the identical goal using a sticker on the box, with a QR Code, or some sort of marker, that scans at the register and donates an amount to the charity, straight at time of payment. Printing a million stickers like that, even if each one is a unique code, is cheaper than recolouring entire tool sets.
As to just altering the colour for taste/preference, this, too, seems like a very weird thing to do. I’ve seen… I think it was Hitachi/Metabo/MetaboHPT release off-standard coloured impact drivers, that basically came in the standard Yellow, Red, and Teal, that DeWALT, Milwaukee, and Makita use as standard. In both major cases of recolouring entire tool lines, it seems very strange to me. There’s cheaper, easier, and far more sensible ways to do things. If it’s a “Pink Things are Popular” thing, I question the sanity on relying on impulse-driven trends to sell full tools. What is trendy today, may likely be forgotten in a week. One can’t gauge the interest in expanding of a tool set, and making a profitable amount of them, in such an uncertain timeframe.
I genuinely wonder what the marketing teams are on, to make them think this is anything more than a desperate move. The tray system makes sense, as do the kits. But kits and set storage are always successful, reliable, sales to be made. Regardless of colours or trends, those elements are guaranteed to sell. I am, obviously, just very confused as to why these things get the go-ahead from marketing and production teams. Tools are tools, and they’re going to behave as tools regardless of colour. It’s quality that counts, far more than trendiness.
Stuart
I really don’t understand the indignation over a pink color options. Lowe’s and Kobalt aren’t the first to offer color options for tools.
S
I’m far more interested in this than the target model from a while ago. Pricing also seems far closer to reality as well.
I really wish higher end tools had a pink option. Far less theft.
Stuart
https://shop.snapon.com/product/Instinct-Soft-Handle/6-pc-Combination-Instinct-Soft-Grip-Screwdriver-Set-(Pink)/SGDX60BPM
https://shop.snapon.com/product/Miniature-Awls%2C-Hooks-and-Picks-Hard-Handle/4-pc-Mini-Acetate-Handle-Pick-Set-(Pink)/ASA204BPM
Matt_T
Snap-on were the first to release a pink tool that I can remember. Was one of probably 10 options on the ratcheting screwdrivers back in the mid ’90s.
Daniel
Nothing wrong with pink!
I’ve got a 3 pair mini set of Snap-On pliers in pink for breast cancer awareness. I got a great set of pliers and I was able to post a picture of them on social media and remind all the women in my life to do their self checks and get a mammogram.
Good tools are good, no matter the color.
Derek
It all seems like a pretty stupid argument. There’s 10 million+ women in college right now. Every girl I knew at college had a tool kit in their dorm room.
If Lowe’s is targeting that market, their biggest mistake was not releasing these a month ago.
Mike
You know the best thing about these tools? They’ll get returned where they belong because nobody’s going to leave Pink tools lying around the house, and I’m sure not going to mix the up with my tools LOL. That drawer set looks pretty good.
Roger
Looks better than the silly things Target it trying to pull. What Lowes should do now is have an array of colors to compliment the mini tool chests. However, they should be tasteful in their decisions. White and bright green should be next.
Brent
I just bought neon pink ski poles, because they are an obnoxious color that I will be able to spot on the mountain with ease. So
when I fall and do a yard sale across the slope I can find them.
Al Barrera
Lowe’s is worrying about pink tools when their stores are empty. The last ceo was bragging about how their target customers are woman while all the contractors are showing up at Home Depot. Pathetic.