It’s not a surprise, that Milwaukee has come out with new compact brushless drill and impact driver promo kits for the 2017 holiday shopping season.
Makita’s got a new brushless kit out – check out our review here, and while it rose above $100, we expect it to drop down to $99 again, which is what we bought our 2 samples at.
And let’s not forget about the Dewalt DCD777 20V Max compact brushless drill, which is already back down to $99 at Amazon.
So with Dewalt and Makita offering $99 compact brushless drill kits at $99, it was somewhat predictable for Milwaukee to come out with their own.
I don’t recall seeing a Dewalt 1-battery brushless impact driver kit, but there is a Makita promo impact driver kit new for this year. It’s currently $129 at Amazon, but it was $99 briefly, and I expect it to drop down again soon.
Who knows, maybe we will see a Dewalt brushless impact driver with 1-battery promo kit this year.
Milwaukee was all but guaranteed to come out with the promo drill kit. In past years, they developed the pattern of matching their drill kit with a similar impact driver kit, and so I figured it was a good bet we’d see a hypothetical single-battery brushless impact driver kit to fit their hypothetical promo drill kit.
Somehow there are a bunch of “SEED” reviews up on Home Depot already. As part of the SEED program, samples go out to select customers for early review.
What’s that – there are other reviews too? Oh yes.
There are currently 362 reviews up for this brand new kit configuration. Looking at some of the reviews, they’re for… a jobsite backpack.
A jobsite backpack?!
This is a great example of what happens when syndicated reviews run wild.
Looking deeper into the stack of 362 reviews, I found some reviews for a promo kit that included the impact driver, a backpack, and a bit set.
I believe those reviews came from last year’s holiday season deal of the day, which was priced at $149.
What the heck is going on? Why is a new promo impact driver kit showing reviews of a backpack and a special bundle from last year?
I can only guess that this current promo is somehow tethered, automatically or intentionally, to last year’s promo kit, and from there the syndicated review system draws a connection to the Milwaukee jobsite backpack to pull some reviews from.
OR, maybe those jobsite backpack reviews were pulled into the review section of the impact driver, backpack, and bit set bundle package. And then somehow this current promo was tethered to last year’s promo, and pulled all of those reviews in.
While all this makes a lot of sense, it’s still not a good idea in my opinion.
The mindset of someone who received last year’s $149 bundle might be different than someone buying this promo kit at its eventual price of $99 (I’m guessing). The $99 kit will lack the backpack and bit set.
It’s not quite the same product, despite the impact driver kit part being the same. The psychology is going to be completely different.
How would you rate your favorite restaurant meal? How would you rate it if it came with a free appetizer and dessert for a lot less than the sum of all the components?
ANYWAYS…
Now that I’ve nearly exhausted what I can say about my dislike for syndicated and aggregated reviews, let’s talk about the actual impact driver kit, 2750-21P.
Here’s the original preview post from 2015.
Unless something has changed, and I don’t believe it has, here are the specs:
- 1500 in-lbs of torque
- 0-2,800 RPM
- 0-3,600 IPM
- 1/4″ hex quick change chuck
- 5-3/8″ length
- 3.1 lbs with compact battery
Pricing: $199 for the kit, $109 for the bare tool.
Right now the kit is priced at $129 at Home Depot. But as mentioned, I fully expect it to drop down to $99 in a few short weeks, or maybe even sooner.
$129 is a good price for a 1-battery kit. $99? That’s great!
You only get 1 compact battery pack, and a tool bag instead of a tool box. But that’s a fine trade-off in my book.
Assuming that this promo kit goes on sale for $99 again, here’s the question: Makita or Milwaukee? The Makita comes with a higher capacity battery pack, but it’s also larger and bulkier. The Milwaukee comes with a compact pack. I’ve never tried the Makita, and don’t remember trying the Milwaukee.
But if I had to pick? It would be the Milwaukee.
Buy Now(via Home Depot)
Buy Now(Drill/driver promo kit via Home Depot)
Sorry, as far as I am aware, despite what the user reviews might suggest, this impact driver set does not come with a free jobsite backpack.
If I didn’t know any better, I might assume that the soft carrying bag was the backpack that so many of the user reviews are about.
I’ve been considering how these syndicated and aggregated reviews might be misleading to customers. But what about retailers’ competitors. Let’s say another tool dealer will be stocking this promo kit. What looks more convincing, more than 360 reviews, or zero reviews?