A reader emailed in today, asking me to make sense of some of the pricing irregularities going on at Home Depot right now.
Over the weekend, one of Home Depot’s Dewalt free tool deals bumped up in price from $299 to $319, only for the price to bounce back by Monday. Another Dewalt free tool deal dropped from $499 to $449, and it has remained at that price.
To put it bluntly, that’s pretty weird. There are a lot of weird things happening this holiday season, and I definitely think there are deeper implications to some of what I have noticed.
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Home Depot has had Dewalt organizer deals for what seems like forever. For the past few years, they’ve had a Dewalt shallow pro organizer for $12.88.
A few days ago, I was able to see that my local stores had tons of inventory – many dozens of boxes at each location. But when I visited my Home Depot stores, all I found were Dewalt ToughSystem organizers and cheap Stanley organizers (which are actually pretty decent).
What about the Dewalt shallow 10-compartment organizer? Home Depot bumped the price up to $40.55.
Over $40? No. That is completely unreasonable high price.
As I see it, there are 2 explanations. Either Home Depot and Dewalt pulled the deal, or they decided this will be a Doorbuster deal to try to pull in foot traffic or online sales for Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend.
From when I last checked, stores were reporting high inventory counts even though I have yet to see them on the sales floor at any of the 3 Home Depot stores I checked.
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So either those stores shipped everything back, or they just haven’t put anything out yet.
Of course there could be other explanations, but Home Depot saving this for a Black Friday Doorbuster deal is the most reasonable one.
Consider this Milwaukee M12 cordless ratchet and screwdriver combo kit. At this time, it’s priced at $199.
Also at this time, you can buy an M12 Fuel impact driver and M12 Fuel brushless ratchet kit for $199. They’re the same price, the 2-tool combo kit with brushed motors, and the 2-tool M12 Fuel kit with brushless motors.
Take a look at the inventory count – 6,532 available. This is going to a doorbuster deal or similar late-reveal deal.
If you can’t wait for the price to potentially drop from $199 to $99, Home Depot has a bundle deal with a screwdriver bit set at $119, and another bundle with the same 2-tool kit with a 43pc 3/8″ impact socket set at $189.
This deal – the 2-tool combo kit – might be in stores, or maybe just online, that part isn’t clear to me yet.
Home Depot has the Milwaukee M12 cordless screwdriver kit at $99. All of the stores near me have a bunch in stock. It has been a Black Friday doorbuster deal in the past.
The stores near me also have this new slimmed-down kit for the same tool. It doesn’t exist in Home Depot’s online store. Yet?
I recently posted about a new Ryobi 18V tool – see New Ryobi 18V Compact Circular Saw. There are strong indicators that it’s going to be a “special buy” promo.
All of this is to say that some irregularities are actually very typical for this time of year, with Thanksgiving just 2 weeks away.
The price of the Dewalt organizer makes no sense and is a break from what Home Depot has done in the past. But unless the situation is far different from how I perceive, I very strongly suspect they’re simply setting the stage for an in-store promo.
In the past, Home Depot has switched online fulfillment on and off for this deal, with online ordering returning shortly after Thanksgiving. I always assume this was done to ensure there was adequate inventory to fulfill advertised deals, and also to encourage people to visit their stores where they are likely to make additional purchases.
The same reader who prompted this post also asked about the “personalized pricing” we have been seeing. This isn’t new, for retailers such as Home Depot, and to a greater extent Lowe’s in my experience, to show different prices depending on the zip code or store selected.
Typically we only see this for clearance items, but it’s been happening more for other items. One idea is that some stores have activated promotional pricing earlier than others. Other than that, I’m out of possible explanations.
Lowe’s has a new Kobalt 3pc pliers set, and it’s priced at $24.98 right now.
My Lowe’s store had them marked at $19.97 in the last week of October, and they still had the same price sticker when I checked a few days ago. It rang up at $24.98 and I needed a manager to override the self-checkout price.
The holiday season is fraught with mistakes, errors, and irregularities. It’s just how things are this time of year. Sometimes mistakes are made, such as when the wrong pricing stickers are placed on floor displays, and other times they’re part of retailers’ deliberate plans.
Lowe’s has a brand new style of mini tool box on their website. They also have tons of their drawered tool boxes in stores. Is this new design going to be a doorbuster deal? Online-only? Will it be discounted at all?
The best we could do is guess and predict, sometimes with experience and historical trends guiding the way, and other times wildly, as we wait to see how things play out.
For myself, the difficult part is in sorting out what’s unusual from what only appears to be unusual. This has been even more of a challenge this year, given the changes I’ve seen so far in pricing, promotional product configurations and deals, and also retail strategy.
This is proving to be a very interesting and atypical holiday season.
Plain+Grainy
I seem to sense prices are governed by the amount of inventory. If their inventory is low on a certain item, they will jack up the price to protect their current stock. When more inventory arrives they lower the price back to historical levels.
Stuart
Not usually. Nearly all promos are hard-set at specific pricing even as the inventory dwindles down to zero. Some are restocked throughout the season, other are not. Price changes are typically planned out well in advance, and also hard set with specific start and stop times.
Will
The deep pro organizer that includes a seal is 27.98. It is very strange that the shallow box jumped higher than it’s regular price, especially after it already went to its seasonal promo price. Some of the big retailers seem very confused this year with their marketing and pricing.
Rog
I went to my local HD a few weeks ago and they had the Dewalt folding work table for $79.98. I snagged one at that price, went back a few days later for something unrelated and it was back to the normal sale price of $89.98 *shrug*
Mark M.
Agreed that pricing is a hot mess. I had a similar Lowe’s experience, but the reverse- there was a display for the 27-1 Klein precision screwdriver for $21, which at the time was cheaper than Amazon by about $6. Went to check out and it rang up as $16. Went back and got another because why not at that price! Strange times.