On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 03:17:42 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:


This crap permeates the little stores. I hear the same thing about DeWalt
tools at HD compared to my local True Value store. The told me the HD tools
were inferior. Of course I asked "what exactly is different in them?" but
only got a blank stare, not a part number, not a material difference,
nothing. Unless someone dissects the two tools and shows me a difference in
bearings or wall thickness of the housing, or other inferior parts, they are
just full of crap.

I absolutely agree that there are no real differences in the actual
machines when the model numbers are the same.

However, I've noticed that the larger stores (Costco, Lowes, HD)
often get slightly different packaging of the same basic tools.

For example, Cstco has a Skil Mag77 worm drive saw right now for a
lower price than either HD or Lowes - but the HD version comes with a
special carrying bag, while the lowes version has an extra long cord.
These are trivial differences, but they're enough to kill any
possibility of using the better costco price to get the 10% discount
at lowes or HD. Another common thing is to see an extension cord
included by one retailer but not another.

I actually do think the manufacturers are doing this to make it more
difficult to do direct price comparisons (perhaps at the request of
the retailers). I also think it's possible that in some cases the
differences are because of low stock turnover. My local HD, in
particular, just doesn't seem to sell a lot of tools - they always
seem to have versions of tools that are 6 months or more behind
everybody else.





Tim Carver