I needed another 6" ruler. Sometimes I can't explain Amazon pricing. Someone must pay that much.





BTW - have you ever searched HD for anything? They have a lot of stuff that isn't in the store, with free delivery to either the store or your home. I've ordered from them quite a few times. Their shipping is almost as fast as Amazon and they will often beat Amazon prices. Their return policy is very good, too. You can order online and if you need to return it, just take it to the nearest store.

It seems that quite a few people would rather pay more and buy online than actually walk into a store. Those are a must have in my shop!

Just out of curiosity I looked them up at Mcmaster Carr $3.71 but no free shipping. https://www.mcmaster.com/6813A61/

Yep, I rarely just buy from amazon without comparing somewhere else.

HD has a daily email you can sign up for with sales and free shipping. It's been helpful to me.

I remember when vendors used to give you those!

And they were made out of good American Steel as opposed to that Chinese Junk that the Amazon one is probably made out of!


And we had to measure both ways everyday uphill in the snow!!!!!

Exact opposite of my experience from the past week with chainsaw parts.

While I admit to ordering the wrong part, the difference was crazy from Amazon vs. Stihl dealer.

From Amazon I ordered a complete kit[consisted of 5 pieces of antivibe buffers] at $12.95

The Stihl dealer hit was $12.95 per buffer.

After much help from people here I could have tried Amazon again but none of the listed sellers offered any dimensions and you just couldn't tell from the pics, I needed the saw back up and running as it had already been a week +
3 of the pieces from the Amazon order fit perfectly[they just weren't replacing the broken parts on saw]

So had I bought all 5 at the dealer it would have been $65 vs. $12.95 at Amazon

This is comparing the same brand, Empire, made in India. Amazon does have some Chinese knockoffs for about $2. $17 for a 6" strip of steel is just absurd.

Why is it that so many otherwise good steel rulers don't measure from the end? The markings start 1/8 to 1/4" from the end making it useless for many uses.

a lot of stuff from Grizzly.

If you were to visit the same item on Amazon on successive days...I'd bet that by the end of the week you will be getting pop-up ads offering the same item cheaper and cheaper. I was looking to replace a lost pocket size vernier caliper a while back...by the end of the week they were offering the same caliper for 50% of the original quote.
I hate being a slave to internet buying but Home Depot is 90 miles and Graingers is a 110 miles. Gas here is 5.59.

Some sites monitor abandoned carts pretty heavy. Stick it in the cart and let it hang out a couple days. Sometimes you'll suddenly get a code/coupon in your email to entice a purchase too.

Doesn't work all of the time but I often try it on non-Amazon sites where I don't need the item immediately.

I recently got a 15% discount on something that way. After it sat in the cart overnight, they emailed me with an offer.

A trip to a big store like HD or Lowes for me involves a 25-30 mile round trip, so 1.5-2 gallons of gas, plus my time. Add to that the uncertainty about what’s actually in stock, and the difficulty of getting someone, anyone, on the phone that can and will help, and online with free shipping is a good bet. Same goes for the shotshells I buy on a regular basis. Last ones I bought locally, an even longer trip, were $100 a case. I can almost always get them cheaper and dropped on my porch to boot. I’ve done very well buying parts for my truck on Amazon, and they know what I drive and offer the correct stuff, every time so far.

OTOH I buy a lot of stuff from the local farm store and also TSC, depending on which direction I’m traveling that day.

Those 6” rulers get used a lot on my loading bench and for checking level when mounting scopes.

We're far enough out that we do a lot of online shopping. Also, the stores here have a very basic inventory, not a lot to choose from. We recently bought some bar stools. We got them online for $120 each. The local price for the same model was $300 each. I like to buy local but I'm not paying that much difference.

Same here. Just got 10% off some fiberglass fence posts yesterday by letting them sit in the cart overnight.

Or don’t have a HD local.

Closest to me is 60 miles..

Some things never change. One of them is that it always pays to compare prices.

Amazon makes shopping easy. I go there for info but often buy elsewhere. Amazon's prices aren't the lowest around.

Bingo! And NEVER sign up for Amazon's automatic reorders. I buy one flavor of Purina Dog Food from Amazon. Buy another flavor from Walmart. Originally ordered both flavors from Amazon until the one flavor nearly doubled. Crazy thing is the two fulfillment centers for our area are 5-10 minutes away from each other...

I love using HD ship to store and my house

HD had me wait 2 weeks for the wrong parts and then the delivery was split so they called the backorder as delivered top. I prefer to hands on shop but do buy a lot from Amazon because my wife can't be left alone and is too crippled to always go.

Better scales are engraved, not stamped. You old machinists will know; my preference was a 5R satin flex. I can no longer read the 100ths, 50ths give me fits.

Exactly.. I buy local whenever I can, but Amazon saves me a lot of bux due to not having to drive to a Home Depot (20 miles one way) not to mention the price of fuel and depreciation.. Shipping is free and they have a 'fulfillment' depot within 25 miles.. Often items arrive next day. I had to order a new printer yesterday, and it'll be here tomorrow.. Same price as the HP store but I get it faster and with free shipping....

Price a couple like mine ( 32nds and 64ths on one side, tenths and hundredths on the other), that say Starrett or Brown and Sharpe on them. You won't feel so bad.

Honestly, unless I need something right now (which I try to avoid) it makes a lot more sense for me to just order it online when I'm sitting here thinking about it than it does to go start up the truck and spend an hour or more of my life driving back and forth to the store, looking around the store, and putting up with all the bullschitt that cranky old bastards like myself hate just to save a few bucks.

The strategy mentioned above of shopping stuff online then waiting a few days for them to start making offers, and offering discounts is a good way to take advantage of the fact that they track all your activities. I spent a couple of days shopping for a pair of shoes to wear to the stepson's graduation next month, then let it rest a couple of days. Today I got a pop up add from the shoe company I was most interested in offering a one day sale....I saved $75 on a pair of shoes.

And when you shop at HD or Lowes you're not really shopping "local." Yeah, they've got some local people working there, but so do FEDEX, UPS and UDPS.

The "New", Sears catalog

But a whole lot faster. Back in the days when mail order was really mail order sometimes, by the time you got something, you'd forgotten what you'd ordered. When they said, allow 4 - 6 weeks for delivery, they weren't kidding.

if you need to return something purchased on HD online, you can return it at any HD store... very convenient...

Amazon is Amazon... But you need to shop the item for price there too.

Here's one for less money than HD, that I pulled up in less than a minute.

Of course many don't do anything there but click "Buy Now" on the first one that comes along....

Amazon has been hi as giraffe nuts lately

The big thing with Amazon is convenience.
I have found alot of things that are over priced unless you dig as Barry mentioned.
And alot of the items are Cheeny suppliers,and of poor quality

I was comparing apples to apples. This ruler is about the same but it's a different brand. The Amazon & HD prices I compared were exactly the same item, Empire brand, made in India.

Gotcha, yeah, I'm particular to detail when I shop there too.

Mostly I use them to avoid driving over 50 miles round trip to town, when it can be delivered to my parcel box in a day or two.

I just recently learned if I know I'm buying something at HD, to check their website first.

I burnt up my old handheld router and needed a new one. Have a few Dewalt batteries and they had one without battery for $179. The website said there was a free powerpack battery ($219, their new battery) but the store said nothing about it. I showed it to an associate on my phone and so he told me to try it. When they rang it up, sure enough it was free.

I feel bad for the amount of money we spend on ordering stuff from out of town. Wish we could actually find it local in the first place and have it right now and/or if buying in bulk, wish we could get a reasonably close deal.


One Amazon order today, a long handled 5/64th hex wrench and a Wiha torx and torx plus set.

And 24 gallons of 5w-40 Rotella from walmart. Saved $170 on that deal alone versus local. Feel like an [bleep] but I can't not un-save that much money.


And of course some more ammo that you can't find in town.

I'd like to buy more local but many of things we want aren't available locally. It either online or a long drive.

learned my lesson about ordering from HD... ordered some cabinets for a rental remodel

only heard about the first delivery...2nd delivery was leaving one day and there were cabinets on the front step, didn't even ring the f'n doorbell

the last 2 cabinets were left on the front step and were stolen before i got to the job the next time.

Now I order RTA cabinets to a commercial address and no lack of communication or theft issues...

When you order something from Amazon, EBAY, or Powder Valley….isn’t that the same as self checkout???

???

Oh my gawd, get a coat hanger and burn a brand into your arm.