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OT McMaster shippers

swellwelder

Stainless
Joined
Sep 21, 2002
Location
Valley City, ND USA
Does anyone know if McMaster-Carr have a lowest bid arrangement for who ships orders? I ask because a few months ago, the shipper has changed back to UPS from Fedex. Which for me means a 3-4 day wait for orders to arrive compared to Fedex who consistently got my orders here in under 24 hours, which from Illinois to North Dakota is mighty impressive in my book.
Since I have been using McMaster, it has gone from UPS to Speedy(a regional delivery service) to Fedex, now back to UPS.

Dale
 
I don't have any direct knowledge about how McMaster does it, but my last employer did a lot of shipping and the various shippers were always competing for our business. UPS and FedEx both had computers and scales in the shipping department and they were programmed for "our" rate. I could use the company's rate whenever I wanted by simply reimbursing them and I can tell you that there was NO WAY I could find a rate that was better than either one of them. Other shippers also tried to compete but most of the time either UPS or FedEx was the lowest bidder. And, the service was still up to their standards: Overnight-AM delivery, standard overnight, two day, three day, etc.

As for McMaster, I find that MY location seems to be a bigger factor than anything else. In Texas and Florida I have found the delivery to be slower. While in Iowa, they often delivered the next day, even with standard shipping. Most of the time it was no longer than two days except when it did not come out of their Chicago warehouse. Then three or five days was more normal. Look at the shipping documents and see where they shipped from.
 
I personally spoke to a rep. at McM and stated that I was not happy with my delivery's by UPS and asked if I could request Fed Ex and was told just ask and they will ship who I want.
 
I have no idea how they do it.. They used to send stuff to me UPS ground, until I put in a big order($5k) and then
it started showing up Fed Ex Next Day Air.

If I go a few months and don't order anything, seems my order comes UPS ground(3 days), and then if I order something right after
that they go back to Fed Ex Next Day Air.

Once in a while they will ship me something out of Chicago, and that usually comes second day... A while back I ordered 5 inserts,
not an insert I commonly use and I needed it NOW. 4 out of California, 1 out of Chicago... Stupid, lets just order 4, still 1 out
of Chicago, 3 from California. I'm assuming it was an inventory thing and no matter who ordered that insert next or which warehouse
their stuff usually ships from they were going to get that one pesky insert leftover in Chicago.

My biggest complaint.. Its Tuesday, and I won't be at the shop on Wednesday, so I wait until just before I go to bed on Tuesday to
put my order in, so it won't show up until I'm back at the shop on Thursday... And the damn thing shows up on Wednesday anyways.
 
Yea I had a strange one this week. 99.99% of the time, our orders to McM arrive the day after ordering. This week, I went in early a few days (arrived a bit after 5 AM) and I placed an order for some plain bearings and other items for a machine build to our requisition system well before 6 AM. Someone in purchasing must have ferreted that PO out early (normally purchasing folks don't start until 7:30AM) because somehow it showed up on the 10:30 AM daily UPS truck.......... I still don't know how it got from Atlanta to NE Tenn and to me in basically 4 hours.....

Now, granted, we are 2/10 of mile from the UPS terminal and we have a dedicated truck that delivers our stuff because we normally have a full truck of deliveries every day, but still..........4 hours?
 
That's pretty remarkable. I got 12 hour service from Cleveland (? maybe) to Columbus by standard UPS, and I don't even order much from them.

20 years ago, FedEx and UPS would essentially warehouse commonly-ordered merch from some high-volume clients. So, it was already packed for shipment, and at the shipper. Seller only needed to call/message the order destination, and it would hop on a truck. Not sure whether that still happens, but it could make for some fast deliveries.

I can see that if McM handled the first or second-level of destination sorting as it's pulled and packaged, then UPS just needs to take that pallet/bin of packages and get it on the correct truck, confident that it's correctly pre-sorted.

Chip
 
I think it's all about location. Here in Pittsburgh, an order placed before 6 pm shows up at most industrial park locations by 11 the next morning. If you request expedited, you get it by 7 am. The same order shipped to my house shows up the following day. I assume it depends on their priority in filling trucks at the UPS terminal.
 
This is slightly off-topic, but I gotta share this about M-C delivery. When the iron curtain came down, people started leaving the former USSR in droves. In the 90s, I did some work with an engineer who had been a Soviet military designer. One day, I was in his office looking at some servodrive mechanisms, and we realized we needed some part. He grabbed his yellow McMaster catalogue and said, in a thick accent, that he would have it next day. Then he said, "Ah, McMaster-Carr. If we had had this, we would have won cold war."
 
I order on a regular basis from their Chicago warehouse. Each time I get to the "checkout" phase I get a message that says "if the order is placed before X:XX o clock it will be shipped for next day delivery". Granted I'm less than 200 miles from their store, but getting next day delivery is better than I can do most of the time with in town suppliers.
 
On a second note.......

Has anyone EVER seen a McMaster-Carr advertisement?.........EVER?........ I haven't. Seems to be 100% word of mouth and hand-me-down knowledge / lore of this fantastic place you can get virtually anything industrial.........tomorrow............. It's hard to say how much money they save by not having an advertising budget. You can just compare prices between them and MSC (which spends millions and millions on advertising) and see the difference.
 
95% of what we order from McM comes the next day from the jersey warehouse by ups ground. We are in Massachusetts.
I try and get the order submitted by 6.00pm est, but i have gone a little past that, but i don't like to push my luck.
Stuff that has to come from another warehouse usually comes from Chicago, FedEx next day.

For example on shipping charges:
I had an order thursday, 5 small items. 4 came from jersey, one from Chicago. Shipping total for the order was $11. Cant beat that.
 
Yep, that's how I heard about them. Word of Mouth. And believe me, I have passed it on. They may not always be the least expensive, but their stock is enormous and I never fear the quality. And their catalogs are GOLD.



On a second note.......

Has anyone EVER seen a McMaster-Carr advertisement?.........EVER?........ I haven't. Seems to be 100% word of mouth and hand-me-down knowledge / lore of this fantastic place you can get virtually anything industrial.........tomorrow............. It's hard to say how much money they save by not having an advertising budget. You can just compare prices between them and MSC (which spends millions and millions on advertising) and see the difference.
 
They have what I would consider the best online catalog they could have with the types of products. You click qty desired then complete order after your first order if your using the same PC. Uline has a similar quick shopping cart method. Outstanding website and outstanding service.
 
I don't order too often here in Kansas, orders from Chicago are here in a day UPS, in L.A. if I ordered by 11:00 AM it was at my shop that afternoon. Every once in a while I get partial shipments, usually it is in stock in L.A. and Chicago.

It is remarkable that they don't advertise, I remember looking at the big yellow book at my dad's office nearly 50 years ago.

Steve
 
I went to their warehouse in Atlanta to pick something up once, amazing place. conveyors overhead and everywhere, continuous air fill packing bags spraying out everywhere, loading docks as far as I could see, all with their own UPS truck backed up being loaded...
 
Another thing I like about McMaster is you can look up your previous orders to find something that you may have ordered before. You can't beat there delivery. I bought a 120 gallon horizontal air tank 2 years ago and they quoted me $100.00 for delivery, I am in Nevada and figured it would be sent from LA, it arrived 2 days later and was sent from Chicago, I can only assume that it was air freighted out.
 
Yep, that's how I heard about them. Word of Mouth. And believe me, I have passed it on. They may not always be the least expensive, but their stock is enormous and I never fear the quality. And their catalogs are GOLD.

Honestly.....and I feel pretty strongly about this.....

That catalog should be made into a required course in any Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Maintenance or Machinist curriculum of study. There are so many things in there that you didn't even know existed that solve so many problems.........
 
More than once, I've been working on a design, needed some doohickey, said to myself "someone must make something like this..." lo and behold, McMaster's got a whole category!

The saying is true: if it's not on McMaster, you need to rethink tour design.
 
I work in a business intense area in PA, about 1.5 hours drive from their NJ warehouse. If I place an order before maybe 10am.... I can usually get it the same day before 4pm. The delivery service is usually "Speedy", but I've gotten same day UPS stuff from them, too.
 
I get the majority of stuff from the Cleveland (Aurora, OH) warehouse same day if I order before 10 AM or so. Comes via First American courier. If it doesn't ship by First American, then it's generally UPS and gets here the next day.
 








 
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