Admittedly, we’ve always kind of enjoyed the low-rent look of Harbor Freight’s website. To me, it always felt appropriate, matching the store’s awesome cheap-ass tool vibe. But alas, everything changes with time. They’ve now joined the modern web world with an entirely new look.
One big positive, though: It’s now much easier to find things. A list down the left-hand side of the page now allows quick access to various tool categories. And now each product includes a much larger, much more high-res image on which you can zoom and pan to see detail. Maybe it’s just me, but the site seems a little faster, too.
Anyway, enjoy. I wonder if they’re going to spruce up the stores, too. Of course, I hope they don’t. While I enjoy the new site, I love the feeling of strolling through the store on a Sunday morning with tool buddies — something that requires neither carpet nor “helpful” salespeople.
The New Site [Harbor Freight]
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24 Responses to Harbor Freight’s New Look
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The site seems much slower, but hopefully they will fix that in the coming weeks. I haven’t tried the checkout process yet, but it has to be an improvement from their old site. The checkout on the old site felt like I was buying something in 1997.
strange. all the salespeople ive encountered at my HF are extremely helpful.
Yeah, they’ve got lots of work to do. The SSL certificate is invalid, the add to cart buttons don’t work on the pages I visited. Looks like their web development company is screwing the pooch on this roll out…
lol. Site’s not working for me. Kind of like some of their tools. How appropriate. Some tools are worth getting there though.
If you go to http://www.harborfreightusa.com you can get back all the cheesy old school goodness.
I must say that all in all they did a pretty good job of redesigning the site. They didn’t make the entire site one big stinking flash applet, or even a bunch of annoying little flash applets. You can even browse the site with Javascript disabled, the links are actually hyperlinks not javascript calls — a sign that they had a designer that actually knows how to make a website and not build one from some construction kit.
Thank you for your comments about the new Harbor Freight Tools website. We appreciate all opinions and will use customer feedback to create future enhancements.
Over the coming months, you’ll see additional features and improvements to the site. Please check back in frequently and thank you for your interest in Harbor Freight Tools!
Joe
Harbor Freight Tools
Nice look and feel to the new site but seemed a little slow – probably because they are still doing a bit of fine-tuning.
Was in my local store last Sunday and it seems that they are changing it a lot. Relocating things to more logical spots – grouping similar items together. It did seem that they were sold out of a lot of items that are usually in stock. Maybe they are holding back orders until the store gets together. aaron’s comment about helpful folks at HF made me wonder if there was a bad comment about the staff at one of the stores. The “hired help” at the Salem Oregon store are great! I know most of them by name – do I go to HF too often? – and they are always eager to help out when I look even slightly lost and confused – and that is a lot of the time. Great people, great store and even, if you look closely, some really great tools.
New website…same old game-playing harbor fart. Their last flyer has the identical item numbers with different suffixes for different prices on different pages of the catalog, just like they always have had, lame.
I wonder if you can actually do a worthwhile search now?
hmpf! nothing but a red x for me right now.
Ya can’t polish a turd
What I *don’t* like is the new policies that seem to go with the new face. Like not being able to get “ship to store” or order through store. Kills any coupon deals. I was looking at buying a mill, now the Grizzly is looking like a better deal given shipping.
No mention of how for at least a day you could see other peoples credit card and billing info?
Dave
As long as they don’t mess with the catalog.
HORRIBLY SLOW! New website
Have been trying to check out for the past two days. The website is not functioning properly. There are constant loading page problems. It is ridiculous. Obviously their server is incapable of handling any volume whatsoever.
What was wrong with the old site? This new one is completely unusable. Just go back to the old one, Harbor Freight!! Thanks for the usa link or I would be limited to catalog searching!
Wow!! Just tried placing an order by phone and after 20 minutes of wait listening to the same obnoxious recording decided to give up. What’s with them? HFTJoe. Maybe HFTJoe can get someone to shape up and actually sell something.
The harborfreightusa.com website does not show prices for me, though I prefer the old school look, I guess the old site was working so they decided to fix it, LOL – I don’t like the corporate dime a dozen look of the new site and the search stinks
What the F, Harborfreight! Went to order on their new site yesterday. Started adding merchandise to cart. Cart keeps reading zero. Reregistered like they ask, got the confirmation email a half hour later, went to login, hit the login button, get another login window time after time. Same thing today no matter how I try to get an order in and their 444-3353 number is still busy after a 45 minute wait.
I hate the search engine on the new site! I can’t find anything. The old one was much better. I don’t know what happened, but it’s awful. Please use the code from the old site on the new!
Harbor freight is making the same mistake Walmart made. Discontinuing slower moving items. Wally has seen the error as losing customers to other retailers. Many folks will not come back if they come out empty handed a couple of times.
Has anyone noticed the high prices at HF these days?! Even the sale prices are not a bargain, considering the products are inexpensive, non-branded products made in China. Kind of shocking. Their claim of “ridiculously low prices” is unmoored from reality.
ALL THE WORDS ARE MINGLED AND IT HAS DARK PLACES ON THE SITE,YOU CAN’T IT.THEY NEED TO FIX THIS PROBLEM.