Porter Cable doesn’t resemble the brand everyone remembers. That attitude is not surprising. After all, Porter Cable products are becoming more difficult to find.
Is Porter Cable Going Out Of Business?
Stanley Black and Decker bought their Tools Group. This brought Porter Cable into the Stanley Black and Decker stable.
Consider the following:
1). Porter Cable is not new. Some people think Porter Cable is a recent addition to the power tool industry, mainly because they just discovered the company, and their products are difficult to come by.
You can probably see where this belief comes from. You expect older and stronger brands to feature prominently in small and large stores, whereas younger brands are more difficult to find.
However, Porter Cable has been around for over a century. It was founded by F.E. Cable, R.E. Porter, and G.G. Porter in 1906. Their firm began as a jobbing machine and tool shop.
At the time, it was a small establishment in a garage. Within a few years, they had shifted their attention to power tools. They also acquired a plant. By the mid-1920s, Porter Cable had made a name for itself after inventing the portable electric belt sander.
Shortly after, they introduced the helical driver circular saw to the market. The product made a splash because it had a surprisingly compact and lightweight construction.
People who were caught off guard when another company bought Porter Cable in the early 2000s might be surprised to learn that a similar development occurred in 1960.
Rockwell International took the brand under its wing, changing Porter Cable’s headquarters while also eliminating the ‘Porter Cable’ name.
Rockwell International used Porter Cable to fight back against Black and Decker by adding a range of low-end tools to the market. This was a mistake because the unreliable tools weakened Porter Cable’s image.
Rockwell International did not remain in operation for long. Two decades later, Pentair Inc came along and secured their power tool group.
If you’re wondering why the Porter Cable brand exists today, it is because Pentair restored the name.
They also abandoned consumer-level tools to focus on their professional counterparts. They made several significant strides in the years that followed. That includes creating the first electric orbital sander and adding their innovations to the Smithsonian Institution’s collection.
Pentair was equally successful, adding DeVilbiss Air to their umbrella.
Pentair’s reign finally came to an end in 2004 when Stanley Black and Decker bought their Tools Group. .
As you can see, Porter Cable has a long and storied history. It has survived numerous changes and upheavals, which is why some people find it hard to believe it is about to disappear from the market.
2). Porter Cable maintained a reasonably decent presence on the market in the first few years of the Stanley Black and Decker acquisition. But the 2010s haven’t been kind to the brand, which has begun to disappear.
3). The people at Tool Guyd were surprised when Porter Cable began to appear in marketing campaigns in 2021 because the brand’s social media activity had remained dormant for many years.
They also noticed that Stanley Black and Decker was mentioning Porter Cable in corporate communications. Those communications revealed that Porter Cable would continue to produce mid-priced tools for professional users.
However, no one expects Porter Cable to make a resurgence because Stanley Black and Decker’s primary focus is the Black and Decker brand, not to mention DeWalt and Craftsman.
4). Recent news has also highlighted the parent company’s determination to emphasize cordless power tools, Air compressors, nailers, and woodworking tools.
Don’t expect any other Porter Cable tools outside those categories to make a comeback. Some professionals in the industry expect Porter Cable’s cordless tools to disappear because they overlap with Craftsman.
But that is also true for compressors and nailers. Stanley Black and Decker have no reason to sell Porter Cable’s compressors, and nailers when doing so puts them in competition with DeWalt and Craftsman’s compressors and nailers.
5). You can see Stanley Black and Decker’s predicament. Everything Porter Cable offers you can get from the parent company’s other brands. And it isn’t like Porter Cable is particularly popular.
The brand was hardly thriving when Stanley Black and Decker bought them. Stanley Black and Decker have every reason to do away with them. But is that what they will do?
6). All the signs suggest that Porter Cable’s days are numbered. Porter Cable has not innovated any new tools in a long time. Their offerings have grown stale, which isn’t surprising if the objective is to phase them out completely.
Stanley Black and Decker are making a concerted effort to push Craftsman. This tells you where their interest lies. They continue to ignore Porter Cable because it doesn’t have a place in the company’s future.
7). Porter Cable would continue to make corded and woodworking tools. But Porter Cable tools are becoming more challenging to find with each passing year. Maybe the shareholder knows something the parent company hasn’t revealed to the public.
Or maybe Stanley Black and Decker don’t want to kill Porter Cable instantly. They want the brand to enjoy a slow death. By the time Porter Cable tools disappear, people won’t notice because they would have abandoned Porter Cable for the parent company’s other brands.
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