Note that this is all hearsay - I have not tried to discover proof of anything
that follows.
The rumor that I have heard is that the local stores are a separate company
entity owned by the two sons of the owner of Harbor
Freight. This "total separation", and the disparate part numbers, "proves" that
the mail order company does not have a local
presence in your state, and therefore the mail order company does not have to
collect sales taxes in your state.
As far as honoring the prices, the local stores had usually done so under the
guise of "honoring competitors ad prices". I've only
had one occasion - a long time ago - where they said they would not honor it
because "it was a different product number and
therefore a different product". Of course only the digits after the hyphen were
different, so it really was the same item, but it is
their game and their rules.
Feel free to set me straight,
Arvid
> I saw something I liked on sale in the twice-weekly HF
> flyer that came in the mail, but I did not see the
> same price on their Web site. Then I noticed that all
> the stock numbers in the flyer were of a different
> style than usual. And the web site listed on the
> flyer was "harborfreightusa.com" instead of just
> "harborfreight.com". Apparently the dealer network is
> somewhat separate from the online sales, and could
> have better or worse prices.
>
> Doug
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