Does Walmart Sell Ryobi Tools? Here's What You Should Know

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These days, you can find power tools just about anywhere. However, if you're interested in a specific brand, you may have to do some searching. After all, not all brands are available at every tool retailer. For example, Bauer and Icon are exclusive to Harbor Freight, the home of several tools that belong in every home garage. Meanwhile, Ryobi is most often found on shelves at Home Depot, as the line technically became exclusive to the hardware giant years ago. 

Surprisingly, this doesn't mean Home Depot is the only place to acquire such tools. If you peruse the Walmart website for a bit, you're likely to stumble upon a Ryobi product. The catch is that the selection won't be as extensive as Home Depot's, and you wouldn't be buying them from Walmart itself. Walmart's website allows third-party sellers to list items, such as Ryobi tools, and sell them at whatever price point and quantity they choose. This means that you won't find Ryobi tools in physical Walmart locations, only on the website, as this would fly in the face of the line's Home Depot exclusivity.

While it might seem like the Walmart website is a good place to go for new additions to your Ryobi collection, that's not quite the case. There are some risks to entertaining these third-party sellers.

In an ideal situation, buying Ryobi tools from a Walmart website vendor won't present any issues. Unfortunately, there's a lot of room for error with this route, to the point that there are some undeniable risks. First and foremost is the quality of your purchase, which has the potential to be all over the place. As an unofficial source of Ryobi products, third-party sellers aren't held to the same standards as Ryobi itself and Home Depot. This means items could arrive broken, missing pieces, or replaced by other items entirely. Listings that include open box buying options are even more risky, as you know going into it that the tool isn't brand new and could be used.

Typically, Ryobi's tool warranties would have you covered if something were wrong with your tool right out of the box. But for this warranty to apply, the tool needs to be purchased from an authorized retailer. In the case of Walmart or Amazon — somewhere you should think twice about buying Ryobi batteries and tools from — there's a good chance that a Ryobi warranty won't come included. In fact, Walmart's Ryobi listings prompt buyers to contact the seller to clarify what kind of warranty the tool in question may or may not come with.

Needless to say, there are serious concerns to keep in mind when buying Ryobi from the Walmart website. Moving away from hypotheticals, how have such transactions actually gone according to buyers? 

Not a lot of people appear to have bought Ryobi tools from Walmart's website. Most tools only have a handful of reviews, though most of them seem positive.

For example, reviews of the Ryobi 40-volt cordless trimmer predominantly give it props for its build quality and power. The same goes for the comments on the Ryobi 18V cordless impact driver, with one reviewer saying the cool worked as expected. Even the Ryobi 18V 4Ah battery received a lot of praise from customers.

Still, there are some negative assessments to go around, too. Several users purchased what was deceptively categorized on the Walmart website as a Ryobi 18V 6Ah battery, only to receive a low-quality aftermarket battery. The Ryobi 18V clamp fan isn't a favorite, either, with a three out of five star rating and one review stating they didn't get what they ordered. The Ryobi cordless blower kit also garnered low ratings from the few who bought it.

Overall, buying Ryobi tools from Walmart is a mixed bag, to put it generously. Just to be safe, you're better off buying from Ryobi directly or Home Depot to avoid any stress-inducing mishaps. You could also take a look at Hart tools instead, which is one of Walmart's many exclusive brands.