While there’s often some crossover when prices at two different vendors, there’s a clear difference between Harbor Freight and O’Reilly’s costs. Harbor Freight, a designated tool retailer, offers hand and power tools at a much lower cost than its competitor, an auto part store.
Though the car repair retailer should cater specifically to designated automotive tools, it has a decent inventory, and often offers more options than Harbor Freight. For example, searching Harbor Freight’s screwdriver and nut driver selection yields 72 results. At O’Reilly, the number of items jumps to 192.
O’Reilly may have a bigger selection of some tool categories, but Harbor Freight’s inventory is a little easier to organize if you’re looking for specific tools. Shopping for a cordless drill? At Harbor Freight, you just need to find the Power Tools section, navigate to Drills, Drivers & Drill Presses, and select Cordless Drills & Drivers. At O’Reilly, the categories, even those under Tools & Equipment, are primarily broken down by their association with auto repair, making it less intuitive to find something like a cordless drill.
It’s worth noting that while the tools at Harbor Freight are budget-friendly, they’re not necessarily a lower-quality product. In fact, in an analysis of one of the retailer’s most commonly sold brands, Bauer, we found that the mid-range tools were comparable to more widely known brands like Ryobi.
