How Do Harbor Freight's Buying Guides Work? Here's What You Need To Know
Harbor Freight is largely known for providing tools at prices that are significantly lower than those offered by competitors. Just take a walk around one of the company's stores, and you'll see its shelves lined with store-owned brands with price tags that are much lower than what you'll typically see from the big box stores. These prices often go even lower during one of Harbor Freight's numerous sales, and there's even more value for frequent shoppers if you sign up for its Inside Track Club membership.
Sometimes it's tricky to find the right tool for the job, though — particularly when compatibility is an issue. You don't necessarily need to wander around the store to find what you need. If you subscribe to the Harbor Freight newsletter or if you've ever poked around on the company's website, then you might have stumbled across the Harbor Freight Buying Guides. This is a collection of wiki-like pages that break down information about the different kinds of products that are available at Harbor Freight. There are currently 11 of these pages in total. "Our Buying Guides offer valuable information and tips to find the best products for your projects," says Harbor Freight. "Make the best buying decision by researching and understanding product uses, functionality and more." This is true of all the company's guides to an extent, but the newer guides offer significantly more helpful information than some of the older ones. Here's a quick breakdown of how these guides work and what you need to know.
Some of the Buying Guides are really useful
According to archive.org, the Harbor Freight Guides Library was created in early 2024, but several of the pages that are linked there are significantly older. The pages for generators, air compressors, floor jacks and jack stands, welders, polishing and buffing, painting, tool storage, and drills and drivers were all created after the Buying Guide section of the site was established and appear to have been more intentionally crafted to suit it. These offer comprehensive breakdowns of the products that are available from Harbor Freight and their intended uses.
Most of them open on a page that explains the difference between various models — outlining the intended purpose of their distinct features, capacities, or power levels. They break down the specific models that are available from Harbor Freight stores, giving detailed information about their individual specifications and the types of jobs that each model is best suited to. The generator and air compressor guides explain what kind of projects they can be used for, how they work, and where to get started when you decide you're ready to get one. The guides for welding and tool storage have some of these sub-pages in common, but also showcase a list of accessories that can be used with the product and outline each of their uses. Others, like the guide for painting, explain specifications that might be confusing and even offer information about maintenance and cleanup.
The page on drills and drivers is formatted a little differently but is still very useful. It compares the best uses for drill drivers and impact drivers as well as hammer drills and impact drivers, respectively. It also compares the specs of various models and breaks down the difference between brushed and brushless motors.
Some of the Buying Guides only offer basic information
The guides for tarps, air nailers and staplers, and winches are all older than the Buying Guide section itself. These subjects link to pages that don't follow the same in-depth guide format as those that appear to have been written explicitly to be product-buying guides after the page was established. That doesn't mean they aren't useful, however. These can still contain information that can help a potential buyer make an informed purchase.
The section on tarps is simple, but that makes sense as it isn't exactly a complicated product. It lists the colors, thicknesses, and materials that are available, categorizes them as being suitable for light, medium, or heavy-duty applications, and then breaks down what specific kinds of applications each of them is good for. It also has a complete list of the tarps that the company sells and lists recommended applications under each of them. The air nailer and stapler section lists the types of models that the company sells and provides a chart that breaks down which applications each one is recommended for use in. It also breaks down the difference between air nailers and cordless nailers, offers brand comparisons, and provides a complete list of products available in the store. The Winches link is perhaps the least useful, as it simply links to the Harbor Freight Off-Road Truck Accessories page. It does include some information about the company's Badland Winch brand as well as some model spec comparisons but doesn't offer enough information about compatibility, use-cases, or installation to feel like a true guide.