I’ve been covering holiday season tool deals and promos for years now, and things are always a little different every year. Here’s what I noticed about this year’s holiday season tool deals and promos.
Tool Retailers
Amazon: Amazon’s tool deals were “just okay” this holiday season. There were some great promos, and some good ones, but something was very different compared to previous years. There were fewer deals, and a noticeable lack of recurring deals. Things slipped a bit more compared to previous years’ promos.
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Acme Tools: Acme’s tool deals were exceptionally good this year, and I ordered quite a few new tools. They lost a few points for a disappointing Cyber Monday deal. $50 max discount? Boooo!
Home Depot: Home Depot had some great tool deals, and I ordered some promo items from them too. They lost some points with me due to poor packaging, but they gained some of those points back. My “Pro Black Friday” Empire Level purchase arrived in bespoke cardboard wrapping and was well protected. In another order, boxes of screws were packaged willy nilly, and so I now have a cracked box of 5/16″ lag screws that I can’t move around easily. Not a big deal, but annoying. They shipped my Milwaukee M12 screwdriver kit without an outer box, and it was delivered in the rain. If that was a gift and not for personal use, I would have returned it due to the soggy mess of a box. I’d like to see some more deal variety in the future, such as more hand tool deals, but overall I think Home Depot did a great job.
Lowes: Lowes’ deals were okay, but simply average. Their online store crashed during peak shopping times, and I was really annoyed with how they handled one of my orders. I bought two in-stock items before Thanksgiving, and it took them a week to ship them out. I received “sorry, your item is delayed, let us know if you still want them” emails, but their customer service apparently didn’t understand my instructions to cancel the orders because I kept receiving “your item is delayed” emails until they shipped out.
Walmart: With Walmart having launched a new Pro Tools storefront, I expected a lot more. They did have some deals, but not enough of the right kind. I was very disappointed.
Tool Nut: Tool Nut has some great deals, and their promos were well-executed.
Tool Brands
Bosch: Bosch tried something a little different this year, with a $79 Freak hybrid impact driver/wrench kit at Lowes, and a $59 Core18V 4.0Ah battery pack. I wish they spread those promos to other retailers too, but they seem to have had an average-for-them array of holiday season promos and discounts.
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Dewalt: Dewalt’s promos were perhaps a little above average this year.
Makita: There were more Makita cordless deals this year – a lot more than usual, and they were very compelling. Good job!
Milwaukee Tool: There were more Milwaukee tool deals this year too, and they were very, very good. I bought a couple of M12 tool kits, and an M18 HEPA vacuum plus 5Ah starter set combo. Their pricing was very aggressive on a lot of tools and bundles, and if I had to crown a winner of the holiday season promos, it’d be Milwaukee.
Ryobi: Dear Home Depot and TTI, PLEASE come out with another Ryobi 18V One+ RC truck bundle for next year!
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OldDominionDIYer
Stuart, I completely agree with your assessment, I ordered from Acme Tools for the first time and did so a second time for gifts for family. Wasn’t overly impressed with their shipping information, but ultimately everything arrived as promised so really no issue. I bought no less than 8 different Milwaukee tools including the orbital sander, staple gun, Hackzall, D-handle Jigsaw, 2 three piece Packout sets, plus numerous other Packout items and the dual power M18 Rocket light. I thought I had quite a productive holiday buying spree and look forward to getting to know several of my new tools even better over the coming new year! Amazon, for me, was quite disappointing frankly, and that hasn’t changed over the past few years, I’m generally not to impressed with their tool deals over the holiday shopping period.
Chris
I’ve ordered from acme a few times. Only once did I not receive and order confirmation so I had no idea when my item had shipped or expected delivery date. But otherwise I’ve had positive experiences with Acme. Especially the quick shipping time considering they’re on the other side of the country from me
fred
I too noticed that Amazon seemed to have mostly ho-hum not ho-ho-ho deals.
Maybe they feel it is no longer needed. They have grown bigger and bigger and have become “the” place to shop for many customers. Garnering greater market share via really good promos may no longer be in their marketing plan. The certainly missed a batch of promised delivery dates on items I ordered – but they all did arrive before Christmas. The “rent-a-truck” Amazon delivery guys were certainly scrambling around in my neighborhood trying to locate addresses – and figuring out where the front of the house was located.
I use promos at Acme, ToolUp, ToolsPlus and Zoro for Christmas presents – and looked at some at International Tool, and Great Lakes Power Tool.
Chris
I bought probably 85% of my stuff from eBay this year. They beat every major retailer and PayPal did 0% for 24 months.
Checkmate.
Robert
Yeah, same here. Ebay won my money. They had some awesome 15-20% off coupons to their already low retail costs on tools that were shipped to me from, get this, acmetools, rockwell, and cpooutlets!
I don’t understand how they can sell it cheaper from a 3rd party retailer that is taking even more of their cut…
I got stuff for 30%-50% off of what it was in-store or online.
Homedepot won the rest of my purchases because they matched the prices of acmetools, toolup, cpooutlets, etc. and allow me easy returns to some things I wasn’t certain of.
Sanfam
I wonder how many of these sellers are moving grey market tools, split apart packaged tools or are simply unauthorized tool resellers. Would a warranty issue be addressed by the manufacturer?
That said, I purchased a Ryobi brushless hammer drill for $40 from one of these sellers. At that point, it’s basically disposable.
DaveP
Nice summary!
I scored several great deals this holiday season and am looking forward to Father’s Day deals. The one problem is that I now have a growing collection of both Milwaukee M12 and Dewalt 20V Max. A single line would be preferred, but I had to get over that and just accept the variety.
I avoided buying any holiday tool deals from Amazon and instead patronized Home Depot and some other smaller tool suppliers that had good deals of their own or would match others.
carl
I scored a TroyBilt power washer on clearance online at Lowes a couple days before Christmas. $250 on clearance for $74. Not every local store had them at this price, but luckily we have several Lowes near us. Tried to get another but they sold out quickly. On top of that, got a 2 year extended warranty for $11 (as the extended warranty price is based on the purchase price of the item you are insuring). Still not sure if that price was a screw up by Lowes or not. At that price, it’s disposable (but only after the extended warranty expired!) .
Hilton
Lowes and Home Depot are xenophobic therefore didn’t get any of my money. C’est la vie!
I’m left with Amazon and nothing tickled my fancy so I ended up for the first time in many years of not buying anything on Black Friday.
Maybe I just have enough tools?
Adam
I suppose I would rather support the two companies that don’t appear to treat their workers like over-worked rats, though I usually buy the cheapest unless I know I’m supporting a good business that earns the extra expense (ToolNut for example).
What evidence do you have that Lowes & HD don’t like the rest of the world? Most of their products are made in China. Actually I have a feeling I might know your answer, and if it’s about building something, probably best not to answer on this forum
Mattd
Homedepot has stores in both Mexico and canada. So I am not sure how they are xenophobic. I am pretty sure they even attempted to open stores in china but did not do enough buisness to justify them.
Vic
Home Depot has closed all their stores in china couple years ago.
Adam
Best Buy tried expanding into Europe & China years ago. Just as HD, it didn’t work out so well for them and pulled out.
Mark Petrofsky
Was xenophobic the correct choice of words for your meaning? I don’t understand the usage in this context.
Stuart
To be fair, big box retailers in other countries don’t often ship to the USA either.
Mike47
Lowes and HD where I live in CA look like the United Nations. I don’t get the xenophobe comment. Care to explain what you mean by this?
Theodore
Generally I stay out of comment sections, however having seen similar comments before, that was a jab at the co-founders of Home Depot. Had absolutely nothing to do with hardware or tools.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, that being said I’ll take Home Depot, Lowes, Acme and ANY other distributor over Amazon ANY day of the week. Now I am from a different generation that when I spend MY hard earned money, I do so with no strings attached. In other words, I am not endorsing anything else.
Stopped supporting Amazon years ago; expedite shipping that didn’t show up on time, damaged goods, lack of professionalism from their drivers among other issues. Amazon might considered great to the younger folks, yet I do not appreciate the hassle that company had caused me on multiple occasions.
As someone that owned a business for decades, I can assure you will lose clients if you lack a certain level of professionalism. Even if you are laid back as I often was, neither myself or any of my employees ever called our clients “dude” “bro” or “homie”, this was sir or ma’mm. Several Amazon drivers called me that in addition to their loud music that in some cases had profane lyrics, weren’t clean shaven, had full sleeve tattoos, piercings nor did they have professional attire either.
Yes content of character matters, however so does public image as well. Especially if you have female clients, you don’t want to have appearance of hiring criminals or anyone “rough”.
To each their own as how their money is spent, I personally believe in the free market. One would think any business, such as a Amazon or a smaller business (Keen) sole focus would be on profits and not publicly engaging in any behavior that might alienate some (half perhaps) of their customer base. Money is money, so when I had my business, my only focus was on good customer service and being profitable.
Lynyrd
After much consternation I finally pulled the trigger and began investing in Milwaukee Fuel 12v and 18v. As you note the deals were great and it helped make the decision.
I’m heavy in Bosch 12v and 18v and still use them primarily for Carpentry and Woodworking projects, but it’s been obvious that the Auto Tech/Electrician/Plumbing/Mechanical world belongs to Milwaukee. Ultimately my decision to add Milwaukee was prompted by three reasons:
1. The new Stubby Impact Wrenches
2. The 18v 1/2 High Torque Impact Wrench 2767
3. Ratchets, especially the ratchets
I don’t understand why others, primarily DeWalt, have not entered this arena. It’s a question to be asked of SBD hight ups.
Ingersoll isn’t competitive and Tool Truck brands are just too costly and not any better than Milwaukee IMO. Milwaukee is just hitting the right notes, right new tools, right deals. It’s popularity has made secondary source pricing (eBay, Craigslist) even better.
Corey
To the contrary, save for a single mcm M12 cutter on a Foreman’s truck, my years in electrical have shown DeWalt and Makita to be to cordless of choice in the trade specific tools. DeWalt has very reputable cordless crimps and cutters, and Makita batteries run a large amount of proprietary brand electrical tools like gator. DeWalt also runs Klein power tools, as Stu has addressed. I just haven’t seen any of those in the wild yet.
Rx9
Yep , Milwaukee’s attention to mechanics is the whole reason I got heavily invested in both the 12 and 18 volt systems. Long story short, the impact wrenches and ratchets are the reason why I now own a bunch of Milwaukee carpentry tools today.
Toolfreak
I’m not willing to go to Milwaukee just yet. Still hoping Bosch will come out with more 12V/18V brushless impacts and the like.
It is a wonder that SBD/DeWalt doesn’t have more offerings. DeWalt does have some pretty good impact wrenches, but not any as compact as Bosch or Milwaukee.
My guess would be SBD wants to keep DeWalt as a brand for construction/woodworkers and not spread the brand out to the automotive assembly or service industry, which is taken care of by it’s Mac/Proto brands, though that’s mostly for hand tools.
Perhaps we will see more SBD Craftsman offerings in the future for power tools, and among them might be full and compact size impact wrenches and other automotive-oriented tools.
Mattd
Have you seen that irwin now makes a plierswrench. I would love to see a review of these if u can get your hands on them. https://m.lowes.com/pd/IRWIN-VISE-GRIP-10-in-Plumbing-Tongue-And-Groove-Pliers/1000533923 at half the cost of knipex I am curious if they are close in functionality.
Benjamen
Nice, good to see some more options in this area, but they don’t seem to be available yet. I’m not sure that I’d buy these sight unseen either.
Being priced at $26 makes me wonder if we’ll be seeing them sub $20 this Father’s day deal season.
Adam
It looks like some stores have them. I always thought their previous adjustable wrenches had a little give to the handles when squeezing real hard. Hopefully these don’t have that, but the adjustment mechanism looks to be the same.
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7618593&postcount=4407
Benjamen
You can’t see images from Garage Journal unless you are logged in.
For those of you who don’t have an account, it’s a photo of two different sizes of Irwin Pliers Wrench at a Lowes. 10″ and maybe 8″.
I cant find info on the from Irwin about what sizes will be offered.
Mattd
Here is a link everyone should be able to see https://i.redd.it/6dc2zr5isy621.jpg
Stuart
Thanks! Well, that’s new!
Jim Felt
I thought the one day (post Black Friday?) Amazon sale on the Bosch multihead 12V drill for around $111 was indeed a great value. Gifted it as I already have one.
Also HD had a two pack of the latest M12 batteries as an online special worth buying. No gifting here. Kept them.
Toolfreak
Yeah, that was a really good deal considering the few lame discounts the Bosch kit had since it came out. Awesome gift.
AL
Acme had some great deals and I was going to order a bunch from them but my TSTAK order hasn’t arrived ( Nov. 23rd ) and no word back from CS so I’m glad I was hesitant to spend more money there.
HD did seem really solid this year, picked up a Bosch laser & some Daredevil paddle bits.
Amazon was really lame this year (I am going to order from them yet, Makita & Bosch). I don’t know if it’s me but it seems they are really pushing a lot of Chinese tools. I did order the 220 angle finder from Bosch and saved $30. You can save a ton more during the year if you use some online Google extensions ( Keepa & The Camelizer). Add your stuff to a list and get notified when there’s a price drop and decide if you want it.
This year seemed kind of meh for a lot of stuff besides tools. Toolguyd really helps a ton so thank you very much to everyone!
Lincoln
To replace my black and decker matrix tool set, I bought a bunch of cordless Makita tools: a brushless impact driver and drill, oscillating tool, subcompact brushless sawzall, subcompact brushless impact driver, sander, and circular saw. I bought them mostly out of 5-7 piece kits from amazon and home depot and sold the pieces I didn’t need on eBay. Amazon deals were best when combined with some sort of other promo like amex’s 20% off $500. Tools that I couldn’t find in kits I bought piecewise on eBay, which was by far the cheapest place to buy pieces.
Joe framer
Home Depot had some great deals…like an m12 6ah and compact 3ah for $89…plus they are always willing to drop prices on items and usually honor online combos in store….
a business account on Amazon saves money……
….acme tools has great deals and helps out contractors big time.
Nate
I found the business account on amazon hasn’t offered any additional savings over my prime account. Please enlighten me as to how you do.
Vards Uzvards
In my experience, Amazon Business sometimes (not often) offers slightly better pricing (compared with Prime, which sometimes offers Prime-only deals), but required purchase minimums are higher, adding a new temporary delivery address is much more difficult, and shipping is slower. On several occasions I ended up ordering through my personal Prime account, and then stopped using Amazon Business altogether.
fred
It’s been six years since I was buying for any of my businesses – but back then we did not find that Amazon had much of a clue as to what small to moderately sized businesses needed. The short-lived Amazon Supply was perhaps a bit better. The Amazon model seems to focus on individual sales – not discounts or adjusted shipping rates (despite the claim of free prime shipping – its cost is built into the price) for buying in bulk. There is no fiscal-year rebate based on volume as some retailers (like Grainger) used to do – and back then they were not very easy to talk to – if your inquiry was outside the box. If you wanted to purchase 100 pairs of pliers – you might well be told just to multiply the price by 100 – and take a guess about how many might be in stock – or sometimes be limited to a fixed number (presumably stock?) that you could add to your cart.
Joe framer
On most tool related items, they will be at least 10% less then other stores. Bulk pricing is even better.
…if I call they will usually price match anyone.
..any problem with any purchases is solved in minutes. Free return pick up at the door and the new item is on the way before I hang up
.. business spread sheets, info, is all in one place for taxes.
..
..on another note- Acme tools is also great to deal with… usually have the newest tools first , always take care of business customers. Usually throw in free batteries with kits, without being a promo. Horrible tracking info,but good delivery.
The key to anything is to talk to someone on the phone,in person and develop relationships…don’t deal with sales reps, deal with managers…
To this day I get a free battery with every tool purchase at HD , the manager personally walks over to the register takes care of it. , Again , relationships.
For a homeowner it’s probably not as easy but try it….” The squeaky wheel gets the grease” …speak up.
.
Also what can you do for them to help drive business to them.
Albert
I didn’t think Acme offered much this year. Their holiday flyer seemed thinner than before. Same with Toolup.
I did most of my shopping on eBay. They had a few 15% off coupons. I picked up several M12 tools, new but not in original packaging, from people separating large kits. The prices were unbeatable.
MacLean
What about KC Tools? Great deal on Knipex 12″ pliers and some Were micro screwdrivers.
loup68
Stuart, I have asked this question before and no one has given me the right answer.
How do you read Dewalt’s battery date code. I mean the string of numbers after the year? I have tried the internet and no one seems to have the correct answer.
I also have not figured out how to ask you or Benjamen a question on your forum. Lou.
Stuart
I saw your question on another post, and I couldn’t answer it any better than a reader did.
There’s a 4-digit year, and some other numbers that I can’t even guess at. They don’t seem to be week codes or similar.
OhioHead
In the old days it was a 2 digit year, 2 digit week (made), I will try and look @ a DeWalt battery and see if I can figure it out (I wonder if plant code could be used now).
Toolfreak
I picked up the lower priced Knipex pliers deals at walmart, and was rather pleased with the “Pro Tools Experience”, which was really just like any other online shopping experience at walmart, really. Having ordered from walmart, unlike amazon, they were happy to refund the difference when the price dropped quite a bit on both purchases. Online chat was easy and helpful.
The best part of the whole thing was the packages were loaded into the auto-pick-up machine at the store so I just showed up, put in the info, and the package came out. Although now that makes me worry that anyone can just get your package if they have your order number. Still, it beats waiting and waiting for a person to go to the back and get your order, sign for it, etc.
Bryan
I jumped on the Home Depot Milwaukee $399 packout/drill/impact driver/hackzall with the 2 batteries and the extra rapid charger & 5.0 battery thrown in. Once they added the extra battery and rapid charger it was too good to turn down. Wifey still doesn’t know I got it….
D
The Amazon deal for the Bosch 12V brushless drill kit (ps32 with 2 x 2ah batteries, charger and tool bag) for only $75 was an absolute cracking deal! I didn’t take much notice of anything else so I can’t really comment beyond that.
Joe framer
Contractors don’t buy tools/batteries from open kits on eBay.
fred
In running businesses – I and my partners preferred to buy from folks who also stood behind and serviced what they sold. Many of these guys (in our area) have now morphed into online vendors as well. These were guys like ToolsPlus, AW Meyer, Ace Tool, and Coastal Tool. We (and I) did buy from Acme and ToolUp – plus Grainger and Zoro because they had stock or sales on items harder to find elsewhere.
I personally and for the businesses – never bought anything on eBay – as their jumble of offerings from vendors and individuals never appealed to me. But I know that my wife has done some shopping on eBay – and says she’s not been burnt. Obviously eBay is a large shopping platform and they must be doing something right – but its just not for me. My take on Amazon – is that they are getting a bit more like eBay with the large number of listings from “third-party vendors” – which may be a good thing for them – but presents (IMO) added risks of us buying counterfeit or sub-par goods.
Joe framer
Totally agree Fred. If I do buy on Amazon it’s from Amazon, no third party.unless the third party is KC Tool or someone I trust…..OnBay I don’t buy tools or batteries but I would buy other non essential items…..good points.
ktash
Agreed, Fred. Perhaps there are new search techniques that help people get through the jumble of offering at Amazon, but for many things Amazon is not the attractive place to shop it once was. Not worth the extended time it takes to find something, even if you put in a precise search term you often get the jumble with the item you want some layers down. Finding the best price is hampered, too.
This benefits the smaller online vendors with better search capability. One of the problems is shipping costs for smaller less expensive items, especially if one has Amazon Prime. Though it’s then built into the price. Amazon Prime, as the cost goes up and the search functionality goes down is less desirable. These may be small signs that Amazon has reached its peak and is starting to go downhill. This combined with the lackluster offerings over the holidays.
Vic
I do buy from eBay. I don’t care about the warranty. If it broken I buy a new one.
Steve
Stuart the 18 volt RC truck was available this year from Direct Tools. It was limited quantity and just the truck with no battery or charger. It took about 2 days to sell out. I just received mine yesterday and am looking forward to trying it out. I am confused why they don’t paint it in Ryobi green though. It seems they are missing out on some great marketing.
Stuart
You or someone else mentioned it, but I assumed that stock was in too limited supply to post about. Maybe those were warranty stock, used in case they needed to replace trucks purchased last year?
I really hope it’s the kind of thing they come out with every year – even every other year would be nice. I needed to contact customer service once for replacement parts, and I know it’ll eventually break and be rendered useless, but it’s far more robust than I expected for the price. We definitely got our money’s worth out of it already.
loup68
Stuart, thank you for trying to answer my Dewalt battery date question. You are right that the numbers do not make a lot of sense when you look at a bunch of the same size batteries from them. Lou.
Eric
I could write a book about the 2018 promo tool season. In short, I was very happy.
HD had some killer tool bundles. I ended up with a DeWalt OMT and the brushless drill holiday promo kit for $140 and did the $229 Ryobi Brushless Bundle. The drills/chargers/low capacity batteries from both of this kits were then given to new homeowners who looked at me like I was Santa, and I got to keep the things I really wanted for net extremely low prices.
Lowes had very cheap Worx Sawhorses that match my two Pegasus tables in height and clamp so I added those. I did the in-store pickup, and when I paid my $30 they wheeled out a 12″ Bosch Axial glide saw. I did the right thing and corrected them…
KC Tool Cyber Monday promos really spoke to me. I think I bought all but the open end wrench set and the pliers wrench. I also added a ton of Wera bits.
Acme Tool had a great Bosch promo and I used that to round out my Bosch 12v buy in.
Despite many of the comments in this thread, Amazon was fantastic for what I wanted this year. Thanks to a post on ToolGuyd, I stumbled onto the Bosch stacking promos, and plunged into the Bosch 12v system. Then I moved onto the Wera promos on both Amazon.com and Amazon.de and we loaded up. There were great holiday deals on Alro batteries, Streamlight, Morakniv, GearWrench and I kept loading up. I will believe it when they will the order, but I also ordered a $275 DeWalt DCH293R2 kit thanks to a commenter here.
We already have duplicates of all of the basics here, but I was thrilled at the sales on the nice things I actually wanted, and consider promo 2018 season a massive success. Thanks so much for tracking most of these and posting here!
Stuart
Glad to hear it!
That $275 rotary hammer deal is very good, but I’m afraid that posting about it will kill the deal. Or maybe there’s a catch of some kind? I’ll keep an eye on it for another day or two.
Amazon’s deals were very good during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but they used to have tool deals of the day nearly every day, with “Lightning Deals” and the such. This year, there were more “sponsored” and 3rd party vendor listings than anything else.
It was a pain to wake up early and compile everything into a post, but the deals were worth the attention.
For example:
https://toolguyd.com/amazon-lightning-tool-deals-for-120715/
https://toolguyd.com/amazon-lightning-tool-deals-for-121015/
https://toolguyd.com/amazon-lightning-tool-deals-for-12182015/
I remember being disappointed with the deals in 2015 – and I wrote about it at the time – but there was a lot more 3 years ago than this year.
Here’s a day of Lighting Deals from 2014: https://toolguyd.com/amazon-lightning-tool-deals-12172014/
I miss those days, although my wallet does not miss those impulse buys.
Ryan Jacob
I had an absolutely horrible experience online with Lowe’s. Had two orders canceled for no reason. When I talked to them they claimed the item was not in stock even though the computer showed that it was. The second order I placed I got an email saying my order was going to be canceled in 3 days if I didn’t take action, so I both called and emailed them and my order was still canceled. Won’t be doing business online with Lowe’s anytime soon.