Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Power Tool News). This thread is read-only.
Are the DIY tool prices going to continue to rise in 2022?
The likes of Mastercraft, Ridgid, Ryobi, WEN tools etc.
They seem to have gone up considerably since 2018.
Will the trend continue into 2022- 2023 given the rate of inflation?
Wondering if I should buy now or wait until the prices drop back down.
Great question. Who knows with this economy. It’s a crazy time. I would think it would rise only because of the supply chain issues and inflation but that is just my guess.
I agree with Eric’s statement. We can’t predict the future, but given the current economic situation I doubt we’ll see prices drop anytime soon. If anything, major brands will produce cheapened newer models or kits to try to minimize rising consumer prices. Those holiday special $99 drills might be kitted with tiny chargers and 1.3Ah batteries instead of 1.5 or 2Ah. The drills themselves may use cheaper components or lack some features like a light or multiple speeds. This shouldn’t affect a lot of people in the market for a budget brand name drill, but you never know.
I’d recommend choosing a brand, buying basics now, and maybe waiting until you need something to buy additional tools. Also, Ryobi does their Ryobi Days promo over the summer, which usually gets you a couple of decent capacity batteries with a charger and bag for $99 with choice of free tool. Honestly, those have kind of grown to be lesser deals over the past few years. In 2016 or so, they offered two 3Ah HP batteries and the 30-minute charger. For the past few years it’s been non-HP 4Ah batteries with a super cheap charger or a basic one battery drill kit. You still get to pick out your free tool, but for every $79+ tool, there’s a $29 glue gun or similar. Still a deal if you need it, but simple math tells you that more bang for the buck is achieved by selecting a more expensive tool. In fact, there are a lot of people who take advantage of Home Depot return policies to stock up on batteries or to get a tool they need for cheap. I’ve never done it, but the receipt states the return value. Say you need that glue gun and pay $99 for the promo. Return value might be $15 for the glue gun, with the remaining $84 being the return value for the starter kit.
Not only just the economics, but the brands you named have also increased in their quality as the technology gap closes between brands.
I have never seen in my life that the prices drop, unless if a new tool is introduced then for a while the price is high and after a year or two prices is dropped to the real price, other than that prices are either stable or going up. But this year is going to be the worst, Covid is one part of it, supply chain is another part, here in UK Brexit is another part of the issue and now Ukraine added to all these. I think within two months prices will be approximately one and half times higher than the beginning of the year and by the end of the year twice more! It is not just tools. Electricity, gas, food, fuel, tools, tool accessories, but I am sure the wages will not rise accordingly :)))
One piece of good quality 3/4 birch plywood would have costed me over $200 yesterday. All the prices seem to be high.
Jronman wrote:
1 hour ago, Jronman said:One piece of good quality 3/4 birch plywood would have costed me over $200 yesterday. All the prices seem to be high.
Yeah, I can imagine. Believe me in England is much much worse!