Dear Lowe’s: Please get better at tool deals of the day! Sincerely, a Lowe’s.com customer.
I just posted about another round of Home Depot tool deals of the day, and included a link to Lowe’s daily deals section, where they are advertising deals on a Craftsman studfinder, random products, and 16 different Kobalt hand and mechanics tools and kits.
I took a closer look at the deals, and some of them are quite good. For instance, the Kobalt T-handle 1/4″ driver handle, with 15 bits and a 1/4″ hex bit adapter, is on sale for just $8.74.
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But, you can’t buy it!!
Out of the 16 online-only deals, only 2 are in stock and available for purchase. That is, 14 out of the 16 advertised deals are out of stock.
You might be thinking that maybe all these tools sold out fast, and that’s definitely a possibility.
But, I’m not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I stay up late on Black Friday and Cyber Monday every year, to catch and post about all of the surprise deals as they go live. Lowe’s had a Craftsman tool deal for Cyber Monday 2021, and it was sold out and marked as unavailable from the start. (My notes say I checked at 3:04am ET.)
I’m thinking that, if Lowe’s didn’t properly plan out their Cyber Monday tool deals, what are the chances they paid attention to the Kobalt sale items they’re advertising as part of today’s deals of the day?
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It’s not uncommon for highly popular tool deals to sell out early at Home Depot, and I do see out of stock item or two at the start on rare occasion. But 14 out of 16 deals listed as unavailable well before lunchtime?
Given Lowe’s history of lackluster tool deals of the day offerings, I’m assuming they simply put a bunch of clearance SKUs together for this promo, whether they were in stock in sufficient quantities or not.
But, maybe – if I were willing to give Lowe’s the benefit of the doubt – they had ample supplies and resellers promptly bought it all out for resale on ebay and Amazon.
Either way, I’m disappointed with Lowe’s, again.
I check Home Depot’s tool deals at least 9 out of every 10 days. I check Lowe’s deals on occasion, but I almost always feel like it’s a complete waste of time.
Lowe’s is home to quite a few stellar tool brands. They could and should do a better job with their deals of the day. I don’t know what the problem is. Not to mince words, it often feels like no one there cares.
How many of the 14 out of 16 sold-out Kobalt tools were available at the start of today’s deals of the day? I’m curious as to whether anyone at Lowe’s knows this answer.
Please Lowe’s, do better. Either your daily tool deals – when you have some – are uncompelling, or they’re compelling and unavailable.
Here’s an idea, and I mean this as respectfully as possible. Watch what Home Depot does with their tool deals of the day, and try to do the same. Home Depot’s deals don’t always align with my needs and interests, but they’re good enough that I check every day.
Maybe divert some resources away from your Metaverse and NFT development if you have to.
Oh, and please also try harder for Cyber Monday this year.
Steve
They can’t even put a store in the fastest, and often, only, growing county in my state, let alone actually have good deals on tools that you actually want to buy or can buy. They’re basically non-existent to me.
Stuart
That could be, but retailers have many different departments and divisions. The team responsible for deals of the day is going to be very different than those planning brick and mortar retail store expansions.
Brian
That may be but it seems to indicative of the overall downward trend of Lowe’s. I used to shop there all the time – they were the closest big box store and often had the thing I needed when I could not find it at my locally owned h/w store. Over the past 3-4 years, they just don’t seem to give a crap about the stores, keeping them clean, maintaining stock, etc. And the associates went from knowledgeable, helpful people to ‘I don’t know, I just put stuff on the shelf’ type of employees. Now with the whole NFT rip-off direction they are going in, I seriously doubt I will ever shop there again.
Frank D
What? NFT?
No store yet in a new development area? And that is a problem unique to Lowes? Retail analysis for major big box chains takes time.
We’re finally getting a Costco, after the state was dominated by Sams, and BJs moved in decades later just a few years ago. It will be interesting how it pans out with three of them in town.
Stacey Jones
I agree. I’ve visited several Lowes in 3 states and they all suck. Crappy service. Inferior products. Awful stocking. There’s absolutely nothing good about them. I won’t shop there. They look like they’re in a slow death spiral. Good riddance when they’re gone, maybe someone better will buy them. HD is better in every way.
Franck B.
I believe Lowes generally has better products than HD. While HD has large enough sales that they tend to convert product lines to in-house, off-shore manufactured items of inferior quality (as opposed to the older method of forcing manufacturing lower quality lines for exclusive sale in their stores–both highly successful tactics that Walmart used), Lowes is left selling name brand items which the profit margin is lower because they have to meet the HD price. Of course HD will try and peddle wares where there’s little chance of swaying a customer, like DeWalt, but most DIY shop customers are there to buy home stuff and are extremely price sensitive and quality adverse.
Just a couple examples, but you can find them all over my local Lowes store (many will be regional): Higher end Schlage locksets are on the shelf; drywall and hot mud are actual USG Sheetrock brand; lighting tends to be brands like Lithonia and even Halo/Juno for fixtures, GE & Philips for bulbs; Imcan get several models of Knipex pliers off the shelf. Lumber really sucks at Lowes around here but we wouldn’t buy lumber at HD either.
I must admit though, with so many people staying away, it makes my shopping/parking experience more pleasant! I don’t have any misplaced belief that I was going to sway your opinion.
Kylehobie16
Agreed. Example; Kobalt drill bits are complete trash. Had to drill a 3/8″ hole for a lag bolt in a deck and ran into a nail with a Kobalt bit and the bit just stopped and spun there. No amount of pressure could get it through the nail. I gave up and pulled out a 3/8″ Milwaukee bit and it went through the wood, nail and all in seconds. Lowes doesn’t even offer Milwaukee tools, but the push Kobalt crap like it’s contractor grade.
Robert
Lowes shows evidence of losing focus on their core business. By contrast, every time I go to In ‘n Out burgers I am struck how laser focused they are on their core business, resulting in an outstanding products and happy employees. They rank high in employee satisfaction.
Jim Felt
And subsequently both customer loyalty and employee pay.
Dom
Some of Lowes employees are not very helpful finding the sale items unless they are right in front of them with a big sign. I was looking for a pin nailer on sale and ask someone in tools to get it off the shelves but because the box did not have the number of the item showing he said it wS not there. I asked him to check the row of boxes that were not showing the numbers but he said it was not it without going up the ladder to check it out. Someone else did eventually check it out and that box was the item I was looking for. 20 minutes later thank you.
Stuart
That kind of experience tends to depend on individual store management.
Bonnie
Adding to this I’ve experienced much higher variance from one Lowes to another than I’ve seen with Home Depot. Good or bad, every HD is largely similar in stocking, service, etc. Some Lowes are downright awful, and others seem to be great.
TomD
Lowe’s online stock connection to their stores seems to be … fragile.
It’s not always up to date, and doesn’t seem to connect. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found some of the “out of stock” things on the shelf in the store.
HD seems to be smarter about it and show things as “in stock for shipping” even if they end up shipping it to me from some HD store somewhere (return label sometimes hints this happened).
They also reveal their warehouse stock pretty easily (“185 available to ship to your store”).
Franck B.
Lowes IT infrastructure seems awful. Even their web site technologies are pretty bad.
However, after years of interacting with them, I’ve found that there’s a single store around my area that is just always wrong when it comes to inventory. I think it was customer service that told me that store is on an old system and it doesn’t interface well with the current systems in other locations. They have to do phone checks all the time. I also suspect that store’s area leads to a lot of loss.
But simple changes to the system could lead to far greater customer satisfaction. Like if the last quantity of items can’t be found to fulfill an order, there should be a non-orderable quantity so that those don’t keep coming up later in orderable inventory searches. I know you shouldn’t just zero out the inventory (and they can’t) but I don’t want to see that one store’s last item keep showing up and then having my order canceled,
Munklepunk
The guys at my hd said they have a lag for when an item is purchased and when it registers. Also thefts throw off the count because they might not know it was stolen for awhile. Combine that with typical inventory management count it usually always off.
Jared
Embarrassing. Lowes website is also terrible here in Canada. I can search for what I want by name and still not find it – even when I know they have what I’m looking for.
Doug N
The one time I purchased a Lowes daily deal, it was cancelled without explanation a few hours later. Presumably out of stock. Agreed that their whole website is inadequate. Thanks for posting about this.
Brian
Lowes only exists to make Home Depot look good by comparison.
Travis
Yes. I agree!
Kevin T
Lowe’s online experience is crazy. Your story is a perfect example.
My example of the week, I wanted to order a 3/4″ socket set. It was listed as $120 at the Lowe’s near my office for ship to store. Same product ship to store at the location near my house 20 miles away $220. Crazy! Neither location had it in stock so it was not a clearance item or something.
Jbongo
It always amazes me when I get advertisements for them online, and I can’t actually buy some of what they are advertising. (Also, you have “batter” instead of “better” in your first sentence.)
Mike
I’m done with Lowe’s. Went with my daughter a few times to pick up the kid craft, it was easy. Than one day they said I had to register online. So that Saturday I registered online in specific time slot, the others were full. Went to Lowe’s and no one knew where the kid crafts were. I talked with 6 employees over 30 minutes and all they did was call someone else. The worst part most of the employees were hanging out at customer service and just ignored me and my daughter. Needless to say my 4 year old was very upset, she loves the kids crafts.
MFC
I use Lowes more than HD, but I find their website integration with actual products in store is lacking. I can talk to multiple associates and they won’t have a clue, then we all look it up and find that there’s none available in my store, but a few in a nearby town, only to walk across it minutes later in a completely random area (and yet it is labeled and obviously in the place the store personnel wanted it). There are some occasionally knowledgable staff, but they complain about stock issues and sometimes losing basic stock items altogether. I have to go to HD fairly often to pick up the items Lowes doesn’t have. I continue to go back to Lowes because of the prices though.
Brian+M
You could have stopped the headline at “Lowe’s Needs to Get Better.”
Lowe’s sucks. They updated their system for the first time in 20 years and MADE IT WORSE, it literally is less useful to Customers. They eliminated coupons, limited military discount.
Also I can absolutely say with 100% certainty that they do not stock that T-handle and haven’t since Q1 in 2019. I bought one of the last available in my area (which includes about 20 stores) on Feb 7, 2019 for $6.24
Trevor
Lowe’s just has to get better, in every respect. Someone commented on their staff helpfulness, and a response it depends on the store management. Well all the stores in my region must have the same manager then. I find their staff to not only not be helpful to find things, they can be down right surly.
Stock wise, a lot of consumer/soccer mom stock, few selections of actual building materials and quite often stuff that is not UL/CSA approved. Add to that that their website will say that something is in stock and you go there and it isn’t. They are always third or fourth choice.
Tool Nerd
Needless to say Lowes has been doing a lot of bait & switch on the website. After you order they simply cancel your order and say it’s out of stock at that price. They will gladly help you reorder the same tool at a much higher price! Come on Lowes you have to do better!! 😎😎
Stuart
They’ve done that to me too, but it’s not bait and switch. In my case, they sent my order to a store, even though I ordered online for shipping. The store couldn’t fulfill both items, so they cancelled part of my order.
“Bait and switch” is when a deal is advertised with the store having zero intention of filling the order, and they try to upsell you to something else.
Kevin
Can’t say I’m surprised. It’s definitely a high level management problem. It’s very apparent that they’re stuck in their old ways. Home Depot’s market cap dwarves Lowes’ in comparison and it shows. I suspect they haven’t updated their playbook in any sort of appreciable way. There’s just a lot of things that add up and it starts to become obvious. Even things as simple as the mobile apps. HD’s is quite capable in terms of functions, whereas Lowes not only lacks the level of function, the app itself is more akin to the Stone Age as far as development goes. It may sound minor, but app sales account for more and more revenue every year, and it continues to climb. No it’s not directly related, but something such as that in 2022 just makes me suspect lack of leadership initiative at Lowes. There’s a lot of areas in which they could improve but as a retailer, they’ve remained relatively unchanged for a number of years. Based on that I’m not surprised that their deals are no exception. HD is generally a very good retailer, of course they’re not perfect, but they invested on the front end and it’s paying dividends. Unfortunately for Lowes, it’s likely too late to make any leaps forward. HD is to hardware stores what McDonalds is to fast food. Sure they’re both big-box name brands, but one absolutely towers over the other at this point. It’s less “competition” than it is a beat down.
Joe H
I avoid Lowes as much as I can in store and especially the website.
Miguel
the majority of their deals suck…. taking $5 off a $60 item is not a deal. I’m some occasions Lowes was out of the deal immediately. they weren’t sold… they simply never had it for the deal. that should be illegal.
I shop best buy, lowes and home depot daily. know the times their deals post so I can be one of the 1st in line for something I might want. which means if they are out of stock when I look, they never had it. All the l three have had out of stock right when the sales begins…
Stuart
I have seen the same, but not to this extent.
Ron+Harris
Yep. You’re right, stores do this too often. They should stock up first if they’re going to call it the deal of the day. Harbor freight does it with their Instant Savings Sale.
Joe S
I’ve had such mixed results at Lowes that I often stay away. Last spring I bought a metal storage shed kit there because the same kit was more expensive at HD. I could have had the shed roughly the same time for ship to home but I had some other projects lined up so I did ship to store so I could pick some other things up (honestly cant remember if there was a cost difference). When I got the email it was in store, I went to get it but they couldn’t find 2 of the 3 boxes the kit was in. Of course later that evening they called me to let me know FedEx brought the other two boxes that day.
Munklepunk
I ordered something online for in store pickup. During the checkout process it said it was going to be awhile because they were really behind with a lot of orders. NBD, I didn’t need it at that moment. Waited a week, called, still backed up, waited another week and went inside. They said that the product wasn’t in stock. I pointed to the large display twenty feet away with a large stack available for walkins. She was visible annoyed, not at me, she said the fastest way was to cancel the order and grab one and go through the checkout line. I am glad I don’t have her job.
Josh+Walters
I’ve found with lowes I have to be in store to see what’s on sale then price check it vs the Home Depot app. It’s unfortunately created a bad habit of walking the tool isles when I’m supposed to be there for a few ABS fittings.
But I have found some solid deals there especially regarding levels and squares FWIW
Joseph D
I tried to buy a Dewalt cordless Sander from Lowe’s website, and for over 6 months they had this really good price (about $79, this was probably 2 years ago now), and I would have loved to buy it from them at that price. However, like your post says, it was never in stock! they wouldnt ship it to me or to store, and they had a “freight” option to ship it for like $50. It was bizarre. So I fully can corroborate your issues identified in this post. Lowes step it up!