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Lee Valley Tools Ltd
Categories: Shopping Home & Garden Nurseries & Gardening Shopping Home & Garden Hardware Stores Nurseries & Gardening, Hardware Stores [Edit]
100 Susie Lake CrescentHalifax, NS B3S 1C7
(902) 450-1221
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
3 reviews for Lee Valley Tools Ltd
3 reviews in English
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Review from Katie M.
Dartmouth, NS
I always love popping in here when I'm in Bayers Lake! It can be really busy so if it's your first time visiting, try to stop in during non-peak hours.
Lots of great gardening and woodworking tools as well as everyday household gadgets. -
Review from David H.
Halifax, NS
12/6/2011
Lee Valley is a bit of a strange store. As you will see very quickly when you visit their website they are specializing in woodworking and gardening. It attracts countless numbers of older men and (especially) women, many of whom seem to have immigrated from England many years ago.
However, the store also has useful things for a much wider audience: for instance, if you are looking for 6" F-clamps, you will quickly find out that most of the big home improvement stores only have a single one in stock since they focus on the much bigger ones. But Lee Valley has a good number of them in stock, in many different price and quality levels, and the less expensive ones actually seem to be better in terms of price AND quality than what Home Depot, Kent, and Rona carry.
But the real specialty of Lee Valley is of course the woodworking section. Here you will find chisels and gouges, from affordable ones to insanely expensive ones, workbenches, vises, planes (the ones that you don't want to fly), but also less common items such as log building tools for your future log cabin.
What I do like very much is their product selection philosophy: yes, they do have some expensive or very expensive tools (and, more generally, items) in stock, but nothing that seems overpriced. In other words they don't seem to be the blind brand lemmings that many stores that carry expensive product lines are. And they also have things that are actually very affordable, less expensive than what you will find elsewhere, but very carefully selected, and never "cheap". They really seem to be very smart and knowledgeable in figuring out what to carry and what not. Quite a few of their products are English or Northern European, but they don't seem to think that something has to be automatically better because it comes from country X. Because of that, they offer a very wide mix - some products from Canada, others from the U.S., others from Japan, others from Sweden, others from England, others from Germany, and so on. You really get the impression that they selected the best values and the best products, never something that is exotic but not really good.
However, as is often the case, with all those positive things to say, there are also negative aspects. My main concern is the way in which this store functions - it almost reminds me of communist countries in which you often had to queue several times within the same store. This is not a store that you can simply walk into and buy something. Yes, they do have a few products that you can actually grab yourself and pay for without delay, but the vast majority of items are locked up and never meant to be touched by a customer. This is true even for inexpensive products such as clamps. It almost seems as if they were obsessed with the idea of theft. Because of that, for the vast majority of products, you have to pick a number, then use the computer to print your order (!), then wait until you get called, then submit your order, then your salesperson will disappear again in the back of the store (i.e. the warehouse area) and eventually you will receive your items and pay. The default seems to be that you never get to touch the items until you have paid for them. (OK, perhaps that's an exaggeration - of course they let you take a look at them, and of course they would take something back to the warehouse area if upon inspection you don't like it.)
This is of course extremely inefficient since it means that there is much less scope to explore, much less scope to take a look at products, compare products, etc. It is a good store if you already know what you want, and fortunately they have a very good website that lists the products, prices, and in-store product availability very carefully, but I find that it is not a good store to browse or just have a look. On a December weekday it took me at least 45 minutes to get a small number of inexpensive items at Lee Valley. Many people of course leave again once they discover how long it takes to get served - it is somewhat reminiscent of a bizarre Kafkaesque play when they shout out three or four or five numbers after each other and, despite people waiting all over the store to be called, nobody responds.
One way to circumvent this archaic system is to order AND PAY online - because when you pay online then you can use a separate express pick-up desk, i.e. no need to pick a number, no need to queue.
But for the future it seems unavoidable to me to overhaul the system this store works - if it functioned like Home Depot, Kent, or Rona, where you can take a look at products on your own terms and browse freely they would, I believe, attract many more people, and have higher sales per customer. They would be much better able to attract newcomers to, say, woodworking. But "unfortunately" they seem to have a very large group of loyal customers who go there anyway despite the ordeal - and, because of that, they probably don't feel a need to change anything. -
Review from Darren G.
Lower Sackville, NS
2/6/2011
Two words can some up Lee Valley, value and quality. All there products fall in either or both categories. Love the order on-line and pick up at the store service. I can't wait for the new catalog to come in the mail. I love this store,
