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East coast vs West coast material suppliers

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I just moved here (Richmond, Virginia area), and am having great joy finding new suppliers. Not one of the 3 local plastic suppliers stocks any plastic in rounds less than 3/4". All of them are willing to bring some in from another branch for a ridiculous freight charge like $125 for 50 feet of 5/16" round Acetal. Found the same thing on some 3/8" round 7075 (48 feet), with the freight from another branch a place quoted $200, which was over $100 more than ordering from Online metals. Is this a common practice on the East coast? In Southern California places would constantly move material between branches even as far away as 500 miles to balance inventory. They would pull in material from other branches and charge ZERO for shipping. Is this a common practice here? I wonder how these places stay in business?
 
Always find it a challenge, especially in smaller quantities like you mention.
And yes, how do they stay in business?

Pulling matreial from other branches seems like a no brainer, since they most likely have truck loads coming in as transfers anyway? I guess the $100-200 'freight charge is a profit center for them?

Klien Steel has trucks coming local 2x a week, and they deliver right-next-door to me, but they insist on adding
a $120 'freight' charge to the very few quotes I've bothered them about. Trying to explain its OK to just drop the
stuff NEXT DOOR does not register with them, they say they still have to charge the $120.
I do ZERO business with them.

Your best bet may be McMaster at this point.
Their prices used to always be a bit scary compared to locals, but now it seems like they are
where the 'deals' are......

How bad is that ?? :nutter:

Hopefully your lower cost of living in Va will not be offset by this and other headaches compared to Ca.
It all may balance out
:eek:
 
Yes DKMC I will be placing a McMaster order later today. McMaster passes on their shipping discount to boot. I also noticed out of 3 steel suppliers within a 45 mile radius, no one sells drill rod, WTF, you could buy it in hardware and fastener stores where I come from. It is like these places don't stock much variety, yet have a lot of space. One appears just as large physically as Fry Steel in Los Angeles County, California yet they are flat busted on 75% of the items in their catalog. The warehouses must be full of rebar and not much else.
 
They are taking lessons from the Fastenal business model perhaps?

I have been looking for a walk in place to buy supplies like cutting fluid, way oil and fasteners. I thought I had found one at Fastenal Richmond. When I walked in I was shocked, small store with mostly empty shelves, what a joke.
 
One local supplier I used to use told me that their business model never predicted the internet could affect their orders, and by the time they figured it out, they were bankrupt. I have two suppliers left - Grainger and McMaster. Grainger is a lot more expensive than McMaster (even with shipping), but I can run over and pick something up if time is worth more than money.
 
I have been looking for a walk in place to buy supplies like cutting fluid, way oil and fasteners. I thought I had found one at Fastenal Richmond. When I walked in I was shocked, small store with mostly empty shelves, what a joke.

Local Fastenal looks about the same here.
I wonder if they have finally gotten the message across that they hate customers?
We've all read the 'Fastenal sucks' threads across the 'net.

Last week I needed 2) 6ft lengths of B7 Grade 3/4-16 plain threaded rod.
I called Fastenal.......boy they must train their help to project 'attitude'.....
Anyway.....the price per 6ft piece was $54 ! And a 4 day lead time to get it in.
I called the one and only mom-pop fastener store in town, and they wanted $48 per piece.

Then I went on Mcmasters website (mostly looking for shock factor) and was amazed their price was $23 each
Shipping added another $6each. I ordered online, never spoke to a person, and UPS brought the stuff the next day.

BTW
I do the same with the local Applied Industrial distributor.....BDI (Bearing Dist. International) kicks their asses on price consistantly

GOD HELP US if MSC ever buys out McMaster !!
 
"GOD HELP US if MSC ever buys out McMaster !!"

Don't go there. I refuse to use MSC as their online catalog is a joke. McMaster has come a long way, their online catalog and prompt shipping is next to none and now their prices have come down compared to everyone else. Unfortunately even though close they don't have everything.
 
Don't go there. I refuse to use MSC as their online catalog is a joke. McMaster has come a long way, their online catalog and prompt shipping is next to none and now their prices have come down compared to everyone else. Unfortunately even though close they don't have everything.


Don't go there
:D


Actually I think MmC's prices didn't come down, everybody else's shot up past them.
 
While I do think there is more of an attitude back east that the customer has to pay our price, I dont really see this as an East Coast/West Coast thing, so much as an LA versus the rest of the country thing.
What people tend to overlook, because its scattered over a couple hundred miles, is how LA has become one of the top 2 or 3 biggest manufacturing centers in the USA, and, pretty much, the only one that is growing instead of shrinking.

I find that up here in the Northwest, which is also West Coast, there is a similar shrinking of stock, and good suppliers going out of business. But in LA, they keep growing and adding new suppliers.

A huge amount of stuff is made in LA. I lived and worked there for ten years, and found that just about anything was in stock, somewhere in Southern California, and that they expected to have to drive delivery trucks 100 miles each way every day, if they wanted to stay in biz.

Meanwhile, the times I have worked on jobs in the East, I have found a lot of suppliers that seem to feel that there is no reason to change the way they have done it for a hundred years. There are still companies back east with no websites, for example.
 
In No Cal (bay area) while I olive in what is typically referred to as a "resort area"...Santa Cruz, the birthplace surfing in the U.S., pretty much everything that you mentioned is readily available next day, or if I choose to drive over the hill to San Jose (the valley), I am golden.
Possibly the conservative attitude prevalent in southeast portion of the country is a hold over from the civil war, which they lost due to their inability to manufacture at the level necessary to win.
 
I am small fry. MSC/J&L never until just after the big freeze. Fastenal maybe after 3 freeze/thaw cycles (of HELL). A little hunting and you can buy what you want and get it next day or so.

45 years ago MSC was a wonderful resource. Not so much now. Fastenal seems to want 3 to 4X others list price for the privilege to ship you something next week. McMaster just does it...

 








 
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