McMaster-Carr is one of the best online suppliers, period.
I’ve ordered all kinds of tools, parts, and materials from McMaster-Carr over the years. While they are perhaps best known to engineers, fabricators, industrial professionals, and other such users, I’m sure they also cater to artists and all kinds of other people.
Looking back at my email history, I have been ordering from McMaster Carr for more than 17 years.
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Not every experience has been perfect, but their excellent customer service is always quick to help.
There’s been one exception – I never succeeded in getting a printed catalog.
I placed a new order the other day and received my shipping confirmation today via email.
With this shipping confirmation, I realized that McMaster is now highlighting what’s on the way.
The subject line reads:
Shipped: Dowel Pins, Shafts, and Socket Head Screws
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The email more or less says the same, and includes a printable packing slip attachment and UPS tracking information:
We shipped the dowel pins, shafts, and socket head screws on your December 31st order. You will receive them tomorrow. Track your shipment using UPS [redacted]
It’s increasingly rare to see usability improvements like this.
Telling me that order 1234ABCDE has shipped with “2 items on the way” isn’t very helpful if it requires a couple of clicks to get more details.
In general, I feel that McMaster-Carr respects my time more so than a lot of other online suppliers.
When working on larger projects, I might place multiple McMaster orders over the course of a week or month. Highlighting the top parts of an order in the subject line is going to help me sort through order notifications more quickly.
This is a very minor change, but one that provides added convenience. That’s increasingly rare these days, as too often “improvements” end up making things less user friendly.
D3t
I still don’t know what black-mail material McMaster-Carr has on UPS & USPS, but their shipping is some of the fastest I’ve ever seen without paying for expedited delivery.
John
Multiple locations around the country. I can receive from their Georgia warehouse next day or 2 day at the most if I miss the cutoff, and I’m one state over.
Ben
1. I’m certain the costs of the (extremely) expedited shipping are reflected in the retail cost, at least partially. That said, I’m not too far from their HQ in northern IL, so it’s not like it has a long way to go to get to me.
2. Extreme focus on logistical efficiency – when I was in college (again, not too far from their HQ), they were recruiting industrial engineers, computer-science majors, and systems designers heavily to help streamline operations as much as humanly possible. I’m sure they still do.
Adam
I despise companies that don’t respect customers time. From large corporations not implementing call backs, or in the least an estimated wait time.
Or my current frustration of having to go over the same store to every “customer service” person, and get no where. Do companies not realize besides my time, the companies time is wasted when I have to repeat myself 10 times, let alone a hundred (I only wish that was an exaggeration at this point).
its_jake
No small-talk is policy there. They are trained not to answer the phone with any “how are you today?” or anything that would make it take longer than absolutely necessary to get you sorted out.
Mike+G
At work I spend between 20 and 40k a year with them and they have always been first class to deal with.
Nick
That’s the ticket to get the printed copy, right? I wonder what the cut off is. I’m lucky enough to have inherited one from a prior fabrication job.
Robbie
I certainly agree with you that having information at a glance in our email is so very useful. A lot of companies have gotten away from it because they don’t want email providers knowing what you ordered, supposedly for privacy reasons. I think Amazon was one the first ones that stopped including product information in their emails but several companies have followed their lead. I don’t know how many times I’ve placed multiple orders and I have no idea what is on what order.
Has anyone ever done the Home Depot 11% rebate match to menards? They give you a tracking number which is great however but it doesn’t tell you what you submitted or what receipt and then when they tell you that it’s been approved or denied they just give you the tracking number again with no reference to what was submitted on that one. Very frustrating, especially when you get a denial.
Stuart
Amazon also wants you to click through to their site, where there’s an opportunity to influence another sale.
I’ve noticed that Amazon started listing what’s shipped out, at least some of the time.
I’m convinced that nobody that makes decisions at Amazon shops there anymore, otherwise they’d be making very different decisions.
Robbie
True, I see emails with and without useful information in them with no discernable pattern. Trying to find stuff to buy on there is horrible anymore and has been for the last few years (doesn’t stop me from spending though). Very rarely do I get search results for the thing I’m looking for, at least initially.
Wayne R.
McMaster also saves a ton of time by hypereffective drilling down to what you’re looking for, the general opposite to Amazon.
ITCD
Indeed. McMaster has perfected the filtering system. Amazon’s seems broken on the other hand, I suppose its quite the challenge with so many listings across every brand under the sun and across every category known to man but it’s Amazon, who also happens to have the money to commit to that and who also happens to own one of the biggest cloud computing platforms around.
TdotW
I think it goes like this:
-> Amazon WANTS you to stay on their site as long as possible(potential to buy more). The algorithm is real good at that too!
-> McMaster wants to get you in & out ASAP cause they know you generally know what you want and order it accordingly. You’re not just shopping around, looking for things to buy.
I haven’t bought from them yet, I only recently learned about them several months ago from @WatchWesWork mentioning them in a video. IIRC, he was talking about an OEM bolt that was like $29. and he could get the ‘same’ thing – in bulk for .11¢/ea! I somehow never even heard of the place, previous to that. It looks like a fantastic place to shop though, I’ll definitely be spending some time &money there sometime soon!
Adam
I really love McMaster for their amazing catalog navigation system, which basically allows you to know for certain whether or not a product exists within a few clicks. I also really appreciate the sku specific product illustrations you can view to better visualize hardware. And I especially love how they have extremely succinct descriptions of everything they sell, not only for what a product is, but what it is typically used for. It’s the ultimate resource for finding obscure hardware for novel “inventions”.
If there is one thing I fault them for (and the reason I’ve never actually purchased anything from them), it’s that they don’t give you a shipping price at checkout. I know people say it’s “so they can give you the most accurate price based on your order”, but I’m sorry, I’ve seen far too many online vendors with astronomical shipping prices to just trust them. How do I know I won’t end up paying $15 for shipping on a $6 bag of bolts? And what if I’m willing to accept slower shipping speeds to save some money? What guarantee do you have that the “reasonable” shipping cost you had a few months ago will be “reasonable” next time?
I love them, really, but this tactic just comes off as stubborn and pretentious.
Rich
When was the last time you tried to order from them? They started providing shipping costs something like 2 or 3 years ago.
Adam
Actually, it was probably around 2 or 3 years since I abandoned a cart there. Which I think highlights the major flaw with their *previous* checkout process – they lost potential sales from me for years, even after “modernizing”. I will have to give them a shot now, since there’s always something I’m looking for. Thanks.
Stuart
As Rich said, they now give you real-time shipping estimates prior to checkout.
Even when they didn’t, the shipping fees were very fair.
Back in 2018, I ordered (14) 2″ steel swiveling leveling feet, and the shipping was $6.59 on the $144 order.
In 2014 I ordered expensive and heavy linear bearing pillow blocks. 3 out of 4 shipped for $6.25. 1 shipped from another location for $5.35.
In 2009 I had a mixed order with 1-foot aluminum bar stock, drill bushings, 2-foot abs stock, 2 screwdrivers, and another length of 2-foot plastic stock. Shipping was $4.50 on the ~$53 order.
In 2017 I had a 39 line item order weighing 12 lbs. Shipping was $6.87 on the $249 order.
In 2016 I had a 24 line item order including plastic sheets and wire spools. It shipped in 2 packages. I was charged $21.72 combined for the 7 lb and 13 lb packages.
All of my orders were similar.
The tactic wasn’t “stubborn and pretentious.” I always considered it to be a way for them to accurately charge what it costs to ship an item.
2-foot lengths of rod stock can be shipped in a box. But what about 4-foot lengths? They put them in carboard mailer tube and charge what it cost to ship.
But if there’s a 10-foot strip of rubber edge molding, it can be coiled and placed in a bag before being boxed.
I think there were too many variables for them to just charge by weight.
What about 6-foot UHMW rod stock? They can’t charge by weight because it requires a carboard tube.
What about steel 3″ x 3″ x 6″? That fits in a box, but will be heavy.
The real-time estimator is convenient, but its absence never dissuaded me from ordering.
McMaster has always been responsive via email and phone – if in doubt, I’m sure they could have provided a complete quote with shipping estimate.
Chris
Not to pile on about how great they are, but they package things exactly the same way for will call, boxes/bags/tubes. They may package before determining if it’s will call or shipped just in case an item isn’t picked up, and they need to ship it to you. They coul easily save money by handing you boxes of hardware directly out of a tray at WC, but they are usually in a sturdy padded mailer or a larger shipping box depending on what collection of content you ordered.
I can’t tell you how many times I have ordered something at lunch and picked it up on the way home from the office or on Friday night and shot over first thing Saturday morning to be able to continue a project.
And while sometimes the qty of bolts or other hardware exceeds the need they are so effectively priced that it makes far more sense than the loose hardware from HD.
Adam
Those are all great shipping fees. Having that as an answer, rather than simply “I find their shipping to be reasonable” when I was originally turned off by their after-sales shipping policy would have likely eased my mind enough to order from them. However, it is still not an ideal way to win over new customers. Couldn’t they have given a rough estimate or range for shipping, which could later be amended? Surely the company that mastered product cataloging and documentation could have been able to provide at least a modicum of information on shipping.
It was stubborn and pretentious because they presumed that new customers would either accept their unknown shipping fees with blind faith and the ones that didn’t (me) were just not worth it to them, I guess. Stubborn, in the era of Amazon Prime, which at the time was still offering guaranteed 2-day shipping for a flat yearly fee. A service which nearly every other online retailer adjusted their shipping strategies to compete with. And pretentious because it felt like they were saying, “if you want to know your total price before hitting ‘pay’, you’re too cheap to shop here.”
And hey, what do you know, they found enough reason to change their ways! So it seems like even they felt there was room for improvement in this area.
As I said, there are many reasons to like McMaster, but their shipping strategy (strategy, not price) was not one of them. I’m glad they’ve made improvements and I will certainly place an order with them in the future.
Stuart
McMaster is a B2B type industrial supplier that prioritizes breadth, speed, and service.
I’m sure they would have provided you with a shipping estimate if you asked for a quote.
its_jake
And if you don’t feel like spending the time to dive through their catalog you can email or text them and just ask! That also covers knowing what that greyscale drawing is- they’ll send you make model and all that jazz if you ask for it
Randy
Did the tracking number link directly to Fedex/UPS or still to their internal page that wants you to login?
I understand why companies want people logged in on every device and stuffed full of cookies to increase the chance of future sales. It’s still a stupid number of taps to get a simple tracking page on my phone.
Stuart
It links to a UPS tracking page with the tracking number automatically appended to the URL.
MM
That is a big pet peeve of mine. Email me the tracking number with a link directly to the shipper–USPS, Fed Ex, UPS, whatever. Don’t send me a link to your website or some 3rd party nonsense where I have to make a zillion clicks to get to what I want to see. This was something I was very particular about with my old machining business. We didn’t do any of that cookie nonsense, we simply sent the customer a direct tracking link with their order confirmation Email. No login of any sort required, no BS. Just a link straight to Fedex, etc.
Andy
McMaster rocks. Love their catalog system and how quick the shipping is.
IronWood
McMaster has been one of our go-to vendors at work for years. Selection, shipping, service, you always get taken care of. Only irritation I have is that it sometimes takes a little digging or a phone call to get the actual brand/model on some items like tools. Overall a really top flight supplier that I’ll continue to use regularly.
Birdog357
What DOES it take to get a paper catalog from them?
Stuart
Being in the mail room at a large organization the exact moment they arrive.
Al
Truth. Can’t tell you how many times they shipped one, and it never arrived. But, somebody down the hall has a brand new one, and they write their name in Sharpie on all sides.
Wayne R.
I’ve had ’em in the past (way back), but the web is so much faster I don’t miss the physical catalog at all.
SamR
I kept trying to get the printed catalog but kept failing. They were too expensive on eBay. Luckily, I found a 1995 catalog at a used bookstore for only $3 with my student discount. I bought it just for the nostalgia.
Dave
Its probably a pain to make the catalogs, as soon as its printed its outdated vs. the website that can live update the product offerings. Would take an army to organize the catalog.
MM
20 years ago it was easy to get catalogs from them, and back then I greatly preferred the print catalog to their website. It was faster to flip pages than to deal with the internet speeds and inferior site design compared to today. But now the website is greatly improved, I imagine it has replaced the paper catalog for most customers. It’s been a while since I last checked but it used to be you could read the catalog virtually on their website, with arrows to flip pages forward and back. I used to use that feature more but lately their search is so good I rarely want to browse anymore. The cost of the paper catalog has got to be significant too.
Ryan
I love mcmaster carr. Always fast. The first time i ordered from them was in the middle of the night, in the morning a pickup was in the driveway dropping off my order. After realizing it is a home business they starting using regular shipping.
My friend orders almost everyday and must spend tens of thousands. He has a pile of catalogs. He always has the latest. I have never been able to get one. I think it has to with the amount you spend. He also orders over phone, maybe that helps.
Brad Justinen
Pretty annoyed with how many thousands of dollars I’ve spent there and never received a catalog. Also don’t like when I buy multiple bolts of the same thread size and half of them are clearly from a different factory or country. Its especially annoying on socket cap screws when some of them have knurling and others don’t.
Norm
I don’t see this change on my end, at least not yet. I don’t receive shipping updates at all though. I don’t see a setting, so I’m not sure how to get this. I do get order received emails. I order through my company. Make multiple orders per week… usually one a day, sometimes more. I don’t even need to check shipping because things are here next day.
Speaking of catalogs, I see one on the shelf, our shop might have one or two. I don’t know if we still get them new. I think every year, we got a new one, they would throw the old one out. I didn’t realize it was such a “thing” to be had.
My only improvement to McMaster-Carr, would to be list the brand/part number. Not so much so I could shop around, but so I can look at more detailed specs of what I am ordering from the manufacturer. I have emailed and asked about certain things from time to time, and they have always been responsive, but that would be a nice step I wouldn’t have to take.
William Adams
I’m pretty sure that they consciously choose not to list brand-specifics so as to allow for changing vendors w/o repercussions.