I wonder – how have Craftsman Tools, Ryobi Tools, and Kobalt Tools compared against each other, with respect to consumer interest trends?
Let’s use Google Trends to compare relative interest for the 3 search terms over time.
Craftsman has a very broad product catalog, and the same could be said about Kobalt, while Ryobi is mainly a power tool brand.
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Thus, I should caution that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. A fairer comparison would be to compare trends for more specific and narrow-focused terms, such as “Craftsman V20 vs Ryobi 18V vs Kobalt 24V.”
Still, the results should be interesting and presumably accurate-enough to depict the brands’ relative consumer interest and popularity over time.
Craftsman is a Stanley Black & Decker tool brand, and is predominantly sold at Lowe’s. Craftsman produces a very wide range of tools and accessories, and also lifestyle-type home and garage products and accessories.
Ryobi is a TTI brand – for the sake of this conversation – that is exclusive to Home Depot. Ryobi primarily offers power tools and equipment, as well as accessories, storage products, and they have been dabbling more in hand tools.
Kobalt is a Lowe’s tool brand. Their visibility seemed to dip in recent years, as Lowe’s focused more energy on promoting Craftsman tools and related products. But, we have been seeing more Kobalt tools in-store and online, and it seemed interesting to throw the brand into the mix.
Note: The charts embedded below are interactive, as opposed to being screenshots. Please let me know if you have problems with them – I can swap in images if needed, but they won’t be as sharp.
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Update: The Google Trends embeds weren’t working well on all mobile devices, and so I replaced them with static images. You can replicate these efforts at Google Trends.
12-Month Comparison
On average for the past 12 months (ending August 31, 2022), there was slightly more search traffic for “Ryobi Tools” than “Craftsman Tools.”
There is enough relative interest for “Kobalt Tools” for me to glad I included it here.
5-Year Comparison
Looking at the 5-year trend, this is where things get even more interesting.
Craftsman (red), Ryobi (yellow), and Kobalt (blue) are plotted for the period of September 1, 2017 thru August 31, 2022. Each data point reflects one week’s worth of search frequency.
It seems that there has been a distinct decline in the relative interest for Craftsman Tools, but mainly during holiday shopping seasons.
Unsurprisingly, there are two discernable peaks for Craftsman and Ryobi search terms – a significant peak that coincides with the winter holiday shopping season, and a subtler peak that approximately coincides with late-spring and Father’s Day.
Craftsman – The overall inter-holiday-season average appears to have remained fairly steady over the past 5 years. However, there is a distinct downwards trend with respect to seasonal peaks, suggesting waning popularity.
Ryobi – Inter-seasonal popularity for “Ryobi Tools” has been steadily increasing. Their interest peaks have also been increasing in max amplitude over time.
It’s interesting to note that the interest in Ryobi Tools was higher around June 2018 than December 2017 and 2018 periods. This could be due to Father’s Day, the spring DIY season, or other seasonal factors.
The same seemed to happen in subsequent years. There’s as much search interest – if not more – around June compared to December.
Kobalt – Lowe’s private label tool brand has maintained consistent interest throughout the period, although they don’t seem to enjoy the same seasonal interest and popularity peaks as the other brands examined here.
Comparative Popularity
The bar graph to the left of each chart shows the comparative total interest over the entire selected period.
For the 12-month period ending August 31, 2022, Ryobi Tools was a slightly more common search term than Craftsman Tools.
For the 5-year period ending on August 31, 2022, Craftsman Tools was more searched-for than Ryobi Tools, but this is largely due to the period between September 2017 and March 2020.
If we look at a 2-year trend, search interest for Craftsman Tools and Ryobi Tools are close to even. As seen in the 12-month trend, it appears that interest in Ryobi surpassed that for Craftsman, at least short-term.
Are These Comparisons Fair?
Here’s where we get into more academic discussion – if you’re interested.
What if we look at Craftsman vs Ryobi vs Kobalt, as opposed to “Brand + Tools” keywords? The chart then looks very different, but there’s greater uncertainty.
Do all of these search terms for “Craftsman” refer to the tool brand, or do they also refer to craftsman, a person skilled in a particular craft?
Adding a secondary term such as “Tools” examines a subset of data, but this should help to more confidently avoid uncertainties or factors that could throw things off.
Here is a 10-year chart comparing search interest in “Kobalt,” “Craftsman,” and “Ryobi.” These trends can still be of interest if you take into account that there could be non-tool-related search interest mixed in with what we’re actually looking for.
There’s always the potential for data to be skewed, and so it’s a better idea to compare trends than to compare hard data.
For instance, it’s apparent in the plots that peak interest in Craftsman Tools has declined somewhat over the past 5 years, and that interest in Ryobi Tools seems to have increased.
We can look at relative interest in “Craftsman Tools” and “Ryobi Tools,” but this might not perfectly reflect consumer interest in or the popularity of Craftsman tools vs. Ryobi tools.
“Craftsman tools” might still not always be intended as “Craftsman brand tools.”
If the same search term can mean different things, and interest in the different meanings vary over time, the trend data will be meaningless and unreliable.
Meaning, if “Craftsman tools” (tools by Craftsman) and “craftsman tools” (tools by or for craftsmen) change wildly with time, then it’s much harder to draw any conclusions from search interest for the term.
This chart shows a 10-year comparison between interest in “Kobalt,” “Craftsman Tools,” and “Ryobi Tools.”
And this chart shows the same, but with “Kobalt Tools” in place of “Kobalt.”
This is why a comparison of “Brand + Tools” terms is better than just “brand” vs “brand” vs “brand.”
Interestingly, there seems to be increasing interest in “Kobalt” over the past 10 years, whereas interest in “Kobalt Tools” has been relatively flat.
But, if we conduct a test search for “Kobalt,” we see that it’s also a music company and comic book character, among other things. “Kobalt Tools” is more specific, without being too focused.
Ryobi 18V vs Craftsman V20 vs Kobalt 24V
This is a 4-year chart showing relative interest in Ryobi 18V compared to Craftsman V20 and Kobalt 24V.
Ryobi’s cordless system is far older and broader than newer systems by Craftsman and Kobalt, and so in addition to new users, there’s a much larger existing user base already interested in the brand.
These trends are not surprising.
It seems that interest in Craftsman and Kobalt cordless systems have been about on-par with each other, and that is surprising.
If we look at one-year trends, “Kobalt 24V” seems to have drawn a little more interest than “Craftsman V20.”
However, do Craftsman V20 users and potential users search “Craftsman V20” as much as a Kobalt 24V user might search for “Kobalt 24V?”
“Craftsman cordless” is a more popular search term than “Kobalt cordless.”
What about “Craftsman cordless” vs “Craftsman V20?”
“Craftsman C3” – Sears-era Craftsman cordless system vs “Craftsman V20”?
From a chart that also adds in “Craftsman 19.2V,” we can see that the “C3” line name was a more popular search term. This gives credibility to the idea that “Craftsman V20” is likely a fair measure of popularity or interest for the present system under Stanley Black & Decker ownership.
But, Craftsman V20 is not as unambiguous a product line as Craftsman C3. Craftsman 20V seems to be a slightly more popular search term, whereas C3 was a significantly more popular term than 19.2V when the brand maintained that cordless system when still under Sears ownership.
This is interesting – Kobalt 18V vs 20V vs 24V. The trends suggest far greater interest and relative popularity for the modern 24V Max system. I did not expect this.
Data, Results, Conclusion
Collecting data is easy.
Extracting results from that data takes a little more effort.
Drawing conclusions – that’s the hard part.
How would you interpret the data shown above?
To me, it seems that Ryobi is an overall upwards trend, Kobalt is flat but consistently steady, and Craftsman has been on a slight decline, especially from holiday season to holiday season.
Comparing relative popularities might not be entirely fair or accurate, but we can see how interest trends for the respective search terms – Craftsman Tools, Ryobi Tools, Kobalt Tools – compare against each other.
Mark
Stuart, good morning, thank you. None of the graphs appear to be working in this article, I’ve tried three Web browsers both off and on a VPN.
Mark
Apologies, they just started working, must have a been a temporary glitch, please disregard and delete my comments. Thank you, as always, for your site.
Stuart
I apologize – I tested the post further on mobile, and there are indeed display consistency issues. I swapped all interactive charts with static images.
Richard A Fuhrman
I have Craftsman and Kobalt hand tools, and Ryobi One 18v tools. Was a Craftsman guy for decades, but believe that Kobalt tools are underrated and might be better. Terrible marketing. The Ryobi One tools are fine for a homeowner like me. They almost always get the job done.
Ernie
I own a couple of pieces of the Kobalt power tools and I have really been impressed. For a while apparently Lowe’s was having a hard time getting the tools and keeping them on the shelves, but now it seems the batteries are the biggest issue. They started out at a really great price and were plentiful, but now they are getting hard to find especially the bigger sizes and have almost doubled in price.
Jbongo
Interesting. I wonder how much of it is impacted by the fact that Ryobi and Kobalt are store specific. The only reason I would search Google for Kobalt + tool is if I was looking for a review or specific information on a specific tool. If I wanted to look up a tool directly, I would just head to lowes.com. I never look up Ryobi since the closest Home Depot is about an hour away. Craftsman tools I might be more likely to search Google for since both Lowes and Ace Hardware carry them.
Stuart
That’s possible, but there are also a lot of people who don’t associate Kobalt Tools with Lowe’s, or Ryobi Tools with Home Depot.
We can also assume that if a given percentage of users interested in Kobalt Tools take to Google vs. Lowe’s, a comparable percentage of users interested in Ryobi Tools would take to Google vs. Home Depot.
This is unlikely to change over time, and so it’s a potential error we can ignore.
There might be more people taking to Google to look up Craftsman V20 info, rather than retailer sites, but that’s likely to be a constant source of error for this brand’s trend. So, it might come into play when comparing relative interest or popularity, but shouldn’t require too much adjustment when looking at this particular Google search interest trend.
A potential consistent source of error might affect a trend consistently, to where it might affect the accuracy of numerical data, but not so much the precision of the interest pattern or peaks.
Jbongo
Good point, Stuart. 🙂
MM
I was wondering something similar. I wouldn’t think that many people would search for something as broad as “craftsman tools” or “ryobi tools”, etc. If you wanted to get generic information regarding the line of tools as a whole wouldn’t you skip google and go straight to craftsman.com? And furthermore I would think that most of time when people search for tools they already have something specific in mind. I.e. things like “Craftsman socket set”, “Ryobi leaf blower”, “Kobalt ratchet reviews”, “Craftsman made in USA”, “Ryobi warranty” etc.
Stuart
There is a minimal amount of search interest, below which Google Trends throws out errors.
For instance, “2024 fashion trends for orcs” will result in “your search doesn’t have enough data to show here” errors.
If “Brand + Tools” accounts for 5% of search interest for that brand, one can assume that similar is true for other brands.
What would be better comparative terms?
MM
Better comparative terms would be easy to describe: [tool brand name] + [noun]. But I’m not how sure that might be to implement in an analytics search.
Maybe brainstorm a list of potential search terms such as:
Ryobi Saw
Ryobi Drill
Ryobi Battery
Ryobi trimmer
Ryobi coupons
Ryobi discount
Ryobi sale
…etc…, see which are the most frequently used terms, and aggregate the data from the top 10 (for example) term combinations.
Frank D
I guess for every person who might primarily be interested in Ryobi, there’s a Craftsman person?
I have not looked at Craftsman tools for the most part, ever, except for holiday catalogs. They had a good reputation in the family, but going to Sears for tools was a bit hit and miss. I do have a ” Craftsman ” mower and accessories (rebranded MTD etc ) from in the Sears days, because they were the closest retailer, and had a summer special.
itsgalf
If you do a graph for “Kobalt XTR” you’ll see a big spike when it first came out and then a sad downward trend right after that.
Stuart
People won’t search for something they’ve hardly heard about.
I/ToolGuyd was part of a sponsored campaign when XTR first came out, otherwise I likely wouldn’t have received much info or test samples. XTR was fantastic and truly raised my expectations for Kobalt 24V Max.
It seemed Lowe’s sold through the first batch after Father’s Day, restocked around the holiday season, and then XTR sort of lived in the background since then.
Consumer awareness requires brand recognition and visibility, two things that require deliberate marketing attention. Brands, retailers, or both must maintain constant efforts until ubiquity is reached, at which point consumers can further drive visibility themselves.
Fyrfytr998
It also didn’t help that Lowes decided Flex was “What’s Next”.
Saulac
Why Ryobi = orange bother me more than it should.
Stuart
There’s no choice in color. The first is blue, second red, third yellow-gold.
It bothered me too, but not enough to where I am willing to manually replot 18 charts in Excel or similar.
TomD
I would switch to “ryobi review” or similar; part of the problem is people don’t search more than just the brandname; but “craftsman” is also a noun whereas the others aren’t.
I’m pretty strongly in the red army but when I see an interesting tool I usually search “tool name review” or “tool name problem” and see if anything comes up. Can be useful for a quick search from the clearance aisle at HD.
I think we still get useful information when comparing the brand to itself perhaps. And it is interesting to see when/where they all rise or drop at the same time.
Stuart
Let’s try it: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=Ryobi%20Reviews,Ryobi%20Tools,Craftsman%20Reviews,Craftsman%20Tools
“Brand + Reviews” is not usually a strong keyword, and it doesn’t reflect seasonal interest.
Looking at the link above, there are spikes in Craftsman Tools and Ryobi Tools around November-December 2019, while searches for “reviews” are flat.
Considering the amount of ads aired around the holidays, and in-store displays that are prominently located in stores, and people researching gift ideas, the broader “Brand + Tools” seems a more appropriate indicator of general interest trends.
Search interest or performance is far easier to observe than it is to predict or steer.
Even with “craftsman” being a noun independent of the tool brand, we could assume that this contributes evenly to the overall interest.
Trends for similar terms, such as carpenter, or handyman to a lesser extent, follow some seasonal trends.
But if you look for “craftsman tools” compared to “carpenter tools” or “handyman tools,” the data suggests that “craftsman tools” is much more related to the brand of tools.
Normalizing “craftsman tools” against “carpenter” and “craftsman,” with the latter exhibiting similar trends, also shows different patterns.
“Craftsman” interest tends to peak from March thru July, which I would assume is prime weather for home improvement and contract work.
Some searches for “Craftsman” will be for the tool brand. But trends – and relative interest – for “craftsman” and “contractor” line up well.
All that is to say I still think “Brand + Tools” is reasonably accurate for trend analysis and comparison.
TomD
Interesting; that would indicate that people don’t check reviews nearly as much as they do other things (price? availability?).
Mopar4wd
I would assume price. I know someone who used to work in automotive advertising, and he had stats that showed the majority of car buyers start their research with a simple google search’s for the brand or brand plus model, most of this was then drilled down with things like brand+model+price or brand+model+near me.
He also says that 10 years ago way more people went directly to the manf website, or somewhere like autotrader then they do now.
Joe E.
Craftsman had every opportunity to blow sales out of the water and build a power house brand. There are a lot of things they’re doing wrong in regards to product offerings, sales, marketing, restoring the brands reputation and legacy…
… and they still won’t listen.
Jim Felt
It’s almost like no Craftsman product manager has any real interest in resurrecting the once dominant consumer brand? Or there isn’t one?
So they paid close to a billion to simply make sure the brand awareness slowly dissipated? Seems like a useless board if so?
And obviously if Milwaukee could build and begin to operate a fully functional US based hand tool factory in half the time these bozos have had they’re either not serious or not competent?
fred
Part of it may be that the partnership of TTI-Milwaukee and HD and its other retailers is much more competent than the SBD-Craftsman alliance with Lowes and its other retailers. If Lowes is “helping” call some of the shots – stumbling around would not surprise me.
Eric S.
Looks like SBD is loosing the battle of brand awareness. They tried to revive & create a niche tool line without taking money from Dewalt. Marketing pushes brand sales so Lowe’s can’t compete with HD & TTI. I see TTI doing what B&D (before Stanley) did with a value brand & contractor brand working off each other to push sales.
John
It’s really interesting to see the long-term “heart beat” of the Craftsman brand in the 2012 to 2021 graph. Sears focused heavily on Christmas and Father’s Day tool sales with Craftsman and it appears that Home Depot and Lowes took a while to adopt similar sales strategies if you look at the trend spikes for Ryobi and Kobalt. I also wonder if brick and motor store count has an impact on internet search stats? As Sears died and the brand moved into Lowes and Ace Hardware, did that have a negative (or positive) impact on overall Craftsman interest? Welcome to the paralysis by analysis portion of the show!
TomD
The advantage Sears had was that if you have a wife/child going to shop for Father’s Day gifts, they’ll likely already be at a Sears, as it was a general goods store that featured stereotypical “women’s shopping”. None of the places you find Craftsman now are that – it’d be like finding Craftsman at Kohl’s or Target (both of which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad option, mind you!).
Mopar4wd
Another interesting thing in the charts is how well Ryobi does on fathers day. They have been very consistent at offering batteries with free tool that time of year for several years and it results in a lot of interest from ryobi owners once you know about it.
ben
Honestly i’ve had ZERO interest in Craftsman tools for a long time now.
The quality is garbage and the prices are relatively high
If i’m looking for a cheap power tool then Ryobi is my go to.
Kobalt stuff is kind of just here
DaveTheTool
You mentioned Craftsman through Lowes however Craftsman (Non- SBD) is still sold through Sears also. Doesn’t this skew the results somewhat ie same name two different outlets and or company’s? Even though I never purposely shop Craftsman at Sears, Occasionally I get a hit on Google including the Craftsman Tap and Die set I ordered the other day from Sears. SBD’s Craftsman Lineup didn’t have one… at least not one I could find on Lowes.
Stuart
Sears? What’s that?
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=Home%20Depot,Lowes,Sears
Fyrfytr998
It’s crazy to me that TTI can market both Milwaukee and Ryobi successfully in the same store with no interference or severely gimping the budget brand to make sure the flag ships sales don’t decline. Whereas, SBD clearly gimps Craftsman to make sure DeWalt sales don’t slip.
Not sure if it’s, because DeWalt is just a side brand in HD and a Anchor brand in Lowes. Or just sheer ineptitude. One things for sure. There is no mistaking a Milwaukee and Ryobi for each other. Not so much for DeWalt and Craftsman. Let’s just clone everything.
Saulac
I think you just answered my question of why Ryobi tools have to be so ugly. Ryobi and Milwaukee tools are both good, but geared toward very different crowds, at the expense of Ryobi. I don’t think other tool companies understand or able to copy the Ryobi strategy.
Ted L
I own multiple cordless systems, Makita 18v,Mmilwaukee m12, Ryobi 18v, Bosch 12v, and personally is see zero reason to buy Kobalt or craftsman cordless tools. For budget based tools Ryobi has the most in the lineup and Ryobi’s higher end stuff is also very good. Ryobi’s pricing compared to Craftsman is pretty comparable and Kobalt is more expensive and in my opinion if your gonna buy Kobalt you mine as well spend a little more and get Dewalt or Makita.
TomD
I have to believe that most of the craftsman and kobalt power tools are sold to people who don’t care about “systems” or anything, just grab something off the shelf.
Mopar4wd
I think this is true. Lots of them sold as gifts to new home owners etc.
MM
I agree. The cordless tool market seems very saturated to me. It makes total sense that there are high-end brands for professionals and there are lower-end brands for occasional use by a homeowner or hobbyist. But the sheer number of brands cluttering up the middle of the market just seems odd to me. If I want something on a budget I’ll look at Ryobi or the ever-present lower end models from Dewalt or Milwaukee which are often on sale for great prices in bundles or kits, or are marked down when the latest-and-greatest new models are released. If I want a tool for serious use I’ll look at Dewalt, Milwaukee, Makita, Metabo. I’m willing to consider more niche brands that actually have something new or special to offer such as Hilti or Flex. But I struggle to figure out where brands like Craftsman, Ridgid, Kobalt, Harbor Freight, and Hart fit in. It’s not that those tools are bad, but it seems strange to buy into a rather limited system like that when you could buy into a much broader system for about the same money choosing basic models from the big boys, or going with Ryobi which is also likely to be even cheaper. I’d much rather buy last year’s Milwaukee than a current model Craftsman, for example, and those probably cost about the same. Cordless tool systems aren’t just about what other tools can share the same batteries, it’s also a matter of parts and service availability. Even if all you plan on buying are tools that every brand has like a drill-driver and a circ saw there’s still an advantage in picking the bigger players over the smaller brands since it makes it that much easier to get your tool fixed if there’s a warranty issue, or to get parts and accessories. Need a Dewalt battery? You can buy that nearly anywhere that sells tools. Need a Kobalt battery? Better hope Lowe’s isn’t sold out or you’re SOL.
Marvin
Brand preference has a lot to do with it. I bought a Kobalt set off my friend usually A dewalt diehard but since I had this brand went with it, have bought about everything in the carpentry line new. Love Kobalt. Work daily head to head with dewalt tools and Kobalt keep up if not exceed dewalt daily. But can’t beat dewalt power stack batteries
Mechanicmatt
Check out the trend by just adding Milwaukee tools to the mix. You can see who is pulling market share.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=Ryobi%20Tools,Craftsman%20Tools,Milwaukee%20tools,Dewalt%20tools
Stuart
I would caution that this comparison has a greater likelihood of being imbalanced.
You cannot simply type Milwaukee, as you’ll get all kinds of city-related results. But “Dewalt” is possible.
If we go back to 2004, the earliest Google’s data is available for this, “Milwaukee Tools” and “Dewalt” are too-evenly represented to be realistic.
But the trend from around 2014 to now, that’s definitely comparable. They’re both on an upwards trends, but Milwaukee interest definitely seems to be growing faster. The same can be seen when looking at the trend for just “Dewalt” as well.
SteveP
I’ve a slew of Ryobi battery tools, having more or less committed to them after bad experience with Makita batteries. That was over five years ago – I’m still using the Ryobi batteries I bought then – not one failure yet. I’ve built a deck, a garden shed, two fences and a carport in that time. Plus the Ryobi batteries get used in string trimmers, hand vacuums, fans… for a DIYer like me, they are a great option. Often on sale, good supply. Not all the greatest tools for sure – the cheap drills have a habit of loosening the bit in use, but IIRC, they cost $30
I have a few Kobalt hand tools. Their battery tools always seemed cheap to me, as do the newer Craftsman battery offerings (also sold at Ace?) Ryobi is not Dewalt or Hilti but just seems a notch above the red or blue. Of course, I have lots of legacy Craftsman hand tools
I’m not sure how having two competing “value” tool lines works for Lowe’s? It certainly helps in hand tools. HD has some expensive options and maybe a Husky variant if you are lucky, but there are often stock issues – unlike with the Ryobi power tools