Anyone shopped at Pro Tool Clearance Outlet

[Rich Engelhardt]

I had a service call the other day that took me past the Factory Outlet Mall in Lodi, Ohio.
I noticed a store called Pro Tool as I drove by. I was hoping I'd get kicked loose for the day after I was done w/the service call so I could go back and check it out.
As things worked out, I got sent in the other direction though.

I checked online, and it looks like they carry B&D - DeWalt, Porter Cable, Stanley, Bostitch.

I also see that they have locations in other states.

Since it's a pretty far drive to the one I saw, I'm wondering if it's worth the drive.

[Jim Sears]

I had never heard of Pro Tool Clearance Outlet until now. I Googled it but didn't come up with a lot. I did find one that had a picture of one of the stores in Ogden, Utah. That one looks like a really nice store. If they are all like that one, it would be high on my priority list of places to go. I don't know if I'd drive a long distance just to find out, but if I were in the area of one of the stores, I'd surely check them out. If you do, report back here on what you find.

[Jerome Hanby]

We've got a store near Trussville. They had some good product. Bosch, Dewalt, Delta and others. Had some massive reconditioned Delta RAS that had me drooling...

I'm headed back in the near future to buy a Bosch impact driver and right angle drill/driver that run off the same L-Ion batteries (12V I think). Each was less than $100.

[John M Wilson]

Some of these outlet stores have real bargains... and some have "bargains" which are over-hyped reductions from a list price that no one actually pays. Best bet (if you have a smart phone) is to check their prices vs. Amazon (or Rockler, Peachtree, other on-line sources, etc) to see if the "bargain" is truly a good deal.

Many outlet stores (particularly ones dealing in clothing) have a few good deals mixed in with a large number of bait-n-switch deals, or over-stated price reductions on look-alike knockoffs of the genuine brand.

The remoteness of outlet malls is actually part of the marketing strategy -- If you make a special effort to travel a long distance, that may be enough to push you over the edge on marginal deals because human nature does not like to come home "empty handed".

Buyer beware.

[Matt Meiser]

We stopped there this past weekend. I got a Bostitch pinner for $30 which is 75% off Lowest price and 60% off CPO. They had a number of RASs for decent prices. And a pretty good price on a couple DJ20's-about $900. Lots of Dewalt at fair prices. They had an enormous Delta 3PH dust collector for about $400. Oh and an RT 40 TS for what seemed like a reasonable price.

Apparently its connected with the Black and Decker outlet stores.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Matt,
Were you @ the Lodi store?

[Jerome Stanek]

I was there the other night I picked up a few small items. I only live about 10 miles from there. There also is a Black and Decker outlet next door. Not as good as the old Back and Decker though. I would go there and come back with 3 or 4 hundred dollars worth of drill bits router bits and saw blades for about $50

[Matt Meiser]

Yes, that's the one I went to.

[Matt Meiser]

Looks like this is gone already? Anyone nearby know for sure?

[Rich Engelhardt]

Probably another victim of the economy or a victim of the location w/the price of gas being what it is.
Lodi is out in the middle of nowhere.

[Jerome Stanek]

If I get a chance I will check it out soon. We don't go that way mush but may go there this week.

[Jerome Hanby]

If it's gone, it's not universal, I was in the store at Moody, AL two weeks ago. The adjacent B&D outlet store is gone, but looks like ProTools absorbed their stock...

[Matt Meiser]

Lodi is out in the middle of nowhere.

This. We are headed down that way this summer but if the LOMLs want to go to an outlet mall and the only thing that would make me want to go there is gone, there's a mall in Aurora that looks less "middle of nowhere" and less empty.

The Pro Tools/B&D stores aren't listed on the alphabetical list of stores at the Lodi outlets but are on the interactive map.

[Jerome Stanek]

I was at the Aurora mall yesterday just sat in the car as wife needed to run in real quick. Yes that one is in the middle of nowhere. At least Lodi is just off interstate 71

[Matt Meiser]

I was at the Aurora mall yesterday just sat in the car as wife needed to run in real quick. Yes that one is in the middle of nowhere. At least Lodi is just off interstate 71

Actually though we are considering staying somewhere around Twinsburg because its easy to go down to Akron/Canton/Hartville and beyond or up into Cleveland. And I know where Twinsburg is--lived there a year or so when I was about 4. Back when it was a sleepy little town, before the Starbucks on the town square.

Outlet mall is a fair trade since I want to hit HGR Industrial Surplus (http://www.hgrinc.com/) at some point while we are there.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Aurora is just a shadow of what it once was when Sea World and Geauga Lake were open.
Traffic in/out of Aurora is a whole lot less congested these days though.

Cleveland is a real mess. Major road work everywhere around the new casino...
A lot of it is probably going to continue all Summer long, if not longer.

The new Hartville Hdw. store is somewhat of a disappointment.
It's huge, but, the shelves all look a little sparse.
It's as if they just moved all the stock over from the old place and didn't order more to fill the shelves.
Maybe that'll change once they get rolling.

There is one positive though. Rt 8 North of Akron is all open now. The huge bottleneck between Rt 303, the Turnpike and I-271 is pretty much gone.
There's 4 or so new(er) hotels just off the Steels Corners road exit on Rt 8. here in Stow.
LOL! I don't want to start a "my town is better than your town" war - but - Stow is a lot nicer than Twinsburg ;).

[Matt Meiser]

We stayed in Stow for a wedding last fall, right where you are talking about. We'll be planning to go to Hartville on Saturday to go to the flea market as well. We haven't decided whether to head down to Amish country--I think we've pretty much seen everything at least a couple times and there actually seems to be less than there once was--or maybe its that every place has the same stuff anymore. We've got to figure out what else we plan to do while we are there as well.

Know of any more "resort" type hotels in the area? We've pretty much only camped down in the past when we've gone to Hartville, but we sold our camper last week so that's out.

[Rich Engelhardt]

It's kind of a black hole around here for resorts of any kind.
You have to go down past Canton on the South before there's anything.

There's talk though that Northfiled Park is going to put in a Hard Rock cafe some time next year.
They (Northfield) want to butt heads with the new Horseshoe casino.
We'll see how that turns out for them.

[Matt Meiser]

Funny--before we lived in Twinsburg, we lived in Northfield. My parents bought a house out in the country (Twinsburg) and then within a year my dad got transferred to Detroit.

Northfield Park must not be owned by Penn National, huh? Raceway Park in Toledo is "moving" to Youngstown or Dayton and the horse track in Columbus is "moving" to the other as a result of the new casino openings in Toledo and Columbus. Penn National owns all of those and don't want to compete with themselves.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Northfield Park is owned by Brock Milstein.
Milstein announced the deal with Hard Rock a month ago - a month before the Horseshoe Casino opened.
.
The Horseshoe is owned by Dan Gilbert's LLC - (Rock Gaming. Gilbert also owns the Cleveland Cavs). - and Caesars Entertainment.
Rock Gaming controls or owns controlling interest in Thistledown Racetrack.

Thistledown is supposedly moving down here to Akron/Canton so it won't compete with the casino.
It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together though and see that they want to compete with Northfiled.