At Home Depot I have noticed the advertising of HDX products lately that are really low price items including tools and other household things.
As far as I knew Home Depot already had their own products marketed under the "Husky" name. From what I can tell the Husky tools seems to be made much better than the HDX tools, but is there really any difference between them? And what's Home Depot's reasoning for starting another line of products rather than promoting the line they already have?
Marketing-wise, I'd say it's similar between Sears and KMart; same company with some same products but different markets. HDX covers a larger market-share, they have trash bags to storage to tools where Husky is almost exclusively tools.
Product-wise, Husky is trying to compete with Craftsman(Sears) and Kobalt(Lowes) offering lifetime warranties where HDX products do not.
Husky & HDX are two separate brands, Husky hand tools have a lifetime warranty and HDX does not, but is a more affordable house brand of tools we sell now.
--The Home Depot Customer Care
--Source
I have no experience with Lowes... But Husky, HDX, Stanley, and craftsman are all low quality as of 2015. I buy thousands of dollars worth of tools a year and man, stay away from anything that has moving parts from any of them. Craftsman USED to be a quality brand. But now, go read some reviews. I have two chainsaws, a bandsaw, and a hammer drill, and a toolchest from Craftsman that have all failed after light use. The list is so long for Husky it is embarrassing. Now and then you can find some hand tools from Husky that work, and yes Craftsman hand tools are still solid-ish, but at a CRAZY price. To answer your question HDX makes single-use-tools only; but it should be expected at the price.
HDX tools are made of less expensive metals and plastics, and have a much lower price than Husky, which has a lower price than Irwin Tools, which is less than Bacco Tools. You pay what you get for.
