There is a trick to the Harbor Freight system that I finally figured out. To find the best price on any item (and check every item you order because often there are lower prices in their system), you need to use the "Order from Printed Catalog" button. This will pop up a box to enter the item number and quantity.
Here is the tricky part, Harbor Freight uses the number prior to the last 3 Letters as a price code in their system. This number can be anything from 0-9. What to do is try all 10 (0-9) number variants for each item you want to order. Sometimes there is a cheaper price you're not aware of.
For example 38849-0-VGA may be 59.99 but 38849-3-VGA may be only 49.99. It is perfectly allowed to order the lower priced item. (Note the last 3 letters are simply a catalog code and do not affect price)
One IMPORTANT thing to note, once you have an item in your shopping basket, you will always get the same price every time you try a different code number. You need to delete the other priced item from your basket before it will give you a new price. To do this cleanly I simply Close the Internet Explorer window I'm using and open a new one to Harbor Freight (also remember to close the Pop up window that Harbor Freight opens on your computer because somehow the price/shopping cart is maintained when that window is open as well).
Normally Harbor Freight will have 2 or 3 prices per item but you don't know what the code numbers are. It is trial and error and you will need to close your window a couple of times to clear out the shopping cart but for a couple minutes effort I've found some great deals.
Here's the process I use:
-> Order from Printed catalog
-> enter number
1 38849 0 VGA - if no item is displayed in shopping cart continue to next number
1 38849 1 VGA - if price shows in Shopping Cart I write down the code and price then Close Window
-> Launch new window to Harbor Freight and order from Printed Catalog
1 38849 2 VGA follow above process 0-9 and find the lowest price.
Also note, Harbor Freight often offers a discount number in their Catalog but this is only available via phone orders. To get this additional discount on top of the lower price, call in your order but give them the code you learned on the website.
Hope this helps, TC
At 02:24 PM 3/8/2003 -0500, you wrote:
Frank,
At Harbor Freight the model only determines the item. The suffix determines what you pay for it. The same item appears on-line, in catalogs, and in fliers, with the same model number but different suffixes and different prices. When you call them up they'll sell any item for any one of those prices so long as you can tell them the correct suffix (it's like "say the magic word").
I'm just looking for the suffix for the $89.99 price. Why not save $10 if you can?
Kevin
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 1:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: ShopTalk: Compressor on sale
Here is what I did: went to the Harbor Freight website, typed in a search for item no. 38898, and up popped a picture and description of the compressor!
