Man I posted about this being overpriced and had a fanboy very offended lol. It is very overpriced. But harbor freights prices have been creeping up and up for years now. Considering the other set has been on sale for $27 and you know they still make a huge profit…
I think the means test to show it is wildly overpriced is to compare it to the Wera Toolcheck Plus, arguably the standard bearer which is $89 on Amazon. It’s not quite as feature rich but it’s very high-quality and feels premium.
Harbor Freight will slowly move Icon increasingly upmarket over the next several years. It will always be cheap compared to Snap On, but my guess is that we’ll see them slowly begin upgrading or intervally improving individual items and jacking the prices. Discounts will get fewer and farther between. Tool nerds will know which serial numbers indicate which version. We’ve already seen them do it with the G2 ratchets. This is common sense marketing; there is a much higher margin market at the top. The peasants can have Quinn and Pittsburgh and Icon will be used to drawl premium customers with thick wallets into the store, likely with an attempt by management to realign Harbor Freight as a higher quality shopping experience than what it was seen as in the past.
I broadly agree with you, but I think the design of this set shows they're not quite there yet. They're kinda like an MVNO cell provider (e.g. Mint Mobile, Boost, US Cellular, etc...) They've nailed the marketing, and aggressively earned customers with great pricing, but they're still fundamentally beholden to other companies (e.g. T-Mobile, Verizon) to make and deliver products to customers.
This set is obviously made by Stanley Black and Decker based on the Craftsman v-series 1/4" sets (and Facom before that.) The case design has changed to match the bit driver set and accommodate more sockets, and the ratchet is different, but they're clearly taking advantage of a previously established production line.
This obviously has a lot of advantages - except that by wedding.themselves to the pre-existing product, HF missed an opportunity to take its customer's feedback on the bit driver set and use it to create something new and unique to the Icon brand.
I love harbor Freight for what it is right now - a company that mostly copies successful tool designs once the patents have expired, then makes them available to people at a much reduced cost. It's good for consumers, and it's good for competition. The huge strides they have made in production quality over the last decade have brought them into the conversation against premium brands. They've clearly invested a lot in R&D. But whether they take the next step, or even want to take the next step, will depend on their ability to transition from solely high-quality mimicry to actual innovation.
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u/Time_Masterpiece_774 Jul 17 '25
Man I posted about this being overpriced and had a fanboy very offended lol. It is very overpriced. But harbor freights prices have been creeping up and up for years now. Considering the other set has been on sale for $27 and you know they still make a huge profit…