www.slashgear.com: Big-box retailers like Home Depot carry a wide range of products from different tool makers, but not every brand is available at the store. Some manufacturers have exclusivity deals with specific vendors that restrict the sale of their products to a particular chain or select partners, while other tool lines are actually owned by a particular company as an in-house brand.
I had no idea that tools could be store specific. I knew that at grocery stores they have a specific brand that is made by the store but I had no idea that it was also true at hardware stores. It's very interesting to see that Home Depot does not have its own brand but instead is partnered with other brands that then become exclusive to the store. It makes me wonder what exactly the use of having a store only brand is. A store is making profits off of all the items it sells, the profit from an in house brand can’t be much different. I suppose it could draw in buyers who want to buy from a specific brand exclusively but I don’t know many of those people. I also find it interesting to see the manufactures behind many different brands of tools(or whatever product) are the same one.
ReplyDeleteI never realized that some brands like Milwaukee and Ryobi were exclusive to Home Depot. It might be because I never go to Lowe’s, but I assumed they would be sold everywhere. I figured that Kobalt was a Lowe’s line, mostly because their main colors are both blue, but also because I never saw Kobalt when I was at Home Depot. Somehow, it’s kind of jarring imagining the Kobalt blue in the orange Home Depot. The only Kobalt tool I have is a pair of needlenose pliers, and they’re not bad. I have a lot of tools from Husky, the Home Depot equivalent of Kobalt, and they all work OK. I don’t know that I would want to buy power tools from either Kobalt or Husky, partly because they’re store brands but mostly because I think I’d worry about availability. At least a name brand like Dewalt can be found in more places that just one store.
ReplyDeleteTool brands for tradespeople are like sports teams for fans. Having an exclusive brand for a certain store just makes sense. Aligning customer loyalty with certain brands makes customers more willing to return and turns a consumer into a loyal fan. A customer returning and replacing and buying more tools is a sale that keeps their return on investment. Investing in an exclusive tool brand for certain stores is buying more into that relationship. As someone who works in an exclusive (almost) shop. Having the same brand of tools is extremely useful in having one battery pool and always being able to have batteries for the tools you need to use is crucial. Being able to mix and match several brands of tools for the best tool in each lineup would be the best for the consumer but of course the batteries would never match between the brands to grow exclusivity and the investment into each brand
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