Harbor Freight Tools, commonly referred to as Harbor Freight, is a privately held tool and equipment retailer, headquartered in

Calabasas, California Calabasas (from Spanish ''calabazas'' "gourds") is a city in the southwestern region of the San Fernando Valley, between the foothills of the Santa Monica and Santa Susanna mountains.e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain managem ...

business. The company employs over 25,000 people in the United States, and has over 1,300 locations in 48 states.

History

In 1977, Eric Smidt and his father, Allan Smidt, started Harbor Freight and Salvage in a small building in

North Hollywood North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North ...

, California. The company began as a mail order tool business that dealt with liquidated and returned merchandise. As the business grew, its name was changed to Harbor Freight Tools. In 1985, Eric Smidt was named president of the company at age 25; he served under that title until 1999, when he became chief executive officer. From the mid-1980s to 2010 Harbor Freight was headquartered in nearby Camarillo, California.

Retail stores

In 1980, Harbor Freight Tools opened its first retail store in Lexington, Kentucky, to sell returned merchandise from its mail order business. The original location was at 1387 East New Circle Road. It later moved to 1301 Winchester Road, Suite 213. The venture proved successful, and Harbor Freight Tools began to open stores across the United States. As of 2022, Harbor Freight Tools operates over 1,300 retail stores in 48 states.

Exclusive brands

Harbor Freight sells many tools under in-house brands, sourced directly from manufacturers. These include: * Bauer * Central Pneumatic * Chicago Electric * Daytona * Drill Master * Hercules * Icon * Predator * Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Pro * Quinn * Titanium * U.S. General * Warrior

Quality assurance

Harbor Freight tests their tools in their own quality assurance facility located in Camarillo, California.

Website

Harbor Freight's website went online in 1997. It had a modest catalog of products, a brief "About Us" section and an order form for the printed catalog. There were also links to a customer service page with delivery times and return policies. In all, the original site had 10 landing pages. The Harbor Freight website has over 79,000 indexed pages. The Harbor Freight website had over 31 million monthly visits as of 2023, mostly within the United States, according to Similarweb. They now also have a cell phone app.

Corporate affairs

Harbor Freight Tools Corporate Headquarters Building

Harbor Freight Tools is headquartered in

Dillon, South Carolina Dillon is a city in Dillon County in eastern South Carolina, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Dillon County. It was established on December 22, 1888. Both the name of the city and county comes from James W. Dillon, an earl ...

, and

Joliet, Illinois Joliet ( ) is a city in Will and Kendall counties in the U.S. state of Illinois, southwest of Chicago. It is the county seat of Will County. At the 2020 census, the city was the third-largest in Illinois, with a population of 150,362. Hist ...

newly opened. It closed a distribution facility in Oxnard, California, in early 2013. On April 4, 2013, Harbor Freight Tools announced a $75 million expansion project for the Dillon distribution center, which opened on November 22, 2015, adding 1 million square feet to the facility and 200 new jobs. In 2022, Harbor Freight Tools opened a distribution center in

, spanning 1.6 million square feet in size and creating 800 new jobs.

Investor relations

In 2012, Harbor Freight, through Credit Suisse, secured a $750 million loan to refinance existing debt and fund a dividend for the company's private shareholders.

Philanthropy

The company supports K-12 education, veterans, and police and fire organizations with donations and gifts of tools and equipment.

Criticism and legal action

Harbor Freight Tools was sued by a group of its store employees in 2012, who alleged that they were misclassified as "exempt" from overtime payments as "managers" under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Harbor Freight Tools won a declassification of the class action; that is, the court found that all the individual situations were not similar enough to be judged as a single class, and that their claims would require an individual-by-individual inquiry, so the case could not be handled on a class basis. In 2015, a class action lawsuit was filed against the company by customers, claiming that the tool company falsely advertised "normal" prices for products that were higher than an advertised "sale" price, when the item had never been offered at the original, higher price. Consumers claimed that this practice misled them into thinking that the item was on sale and they were getting a deal. The company settled, paying consumers up to $33,000,000.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Companies based in Calabasas, California Home improvement retailers of the United States Retail companies established in 1977 1977 establishments in California