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Anyone know what's going on with MSC?

MSC has been pretty good to me over the years. Really, no complaints.
About the only things I've noticed were that a lot more seems to either be out of stock (supply chain?) or shipping from the manufacturer and the boxes all seem to be much larger.
In all the years of buying from them, I've only had one shipment lost and they replaced it pronto, so, I'm pretty happy.
 
Companies are trying to keep less and less for on hand parts, even distributors. Plus with parts shortages and high prices due to pandemic, war in ukraine, and steel mills moving locations etc expect this to keep going for at least a year.
 
I found I was out of the profiling inserts I use on plastic. Looked on Arno's website to get their phone number and noticed that MSC was listed as a distributor. Arno was closed as it was near 5:00PM. Called MSC and they had them in stock, remembered this thread and asked for next day. They were at my front door when I got back from a fire call at 6:30 yesterday. The box was pretty dusty but that is UPS.
The box was the kind that cannot be reused, minor complaint. Specialty profiling insert was in stock, what is not to like about that?
 
In Minneapolis I can order from McMaster after 5:00 PM and almost always get it next day. I think it mostly comes from Chicago.

I'm guessing Covid shutdown is still causing stock problems for everyone. There might be something in a farther out warehouse but nothing close by.
 
It's funny I swore off MSC years ago, hard to search website and posted prices were always way too high unless you qualified for a discount. On a recent order however I was pleasantly surprised when MSC was 30% less than McMaster and figured maybe they were getting more competitive?

Anyone else have similar experiences?

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their website deff sucks compared to mcmaster.
 
McMaster is probably the most consistent and reliable company I've ever dealt with. I don't know how the hell they do it...they just have everything.

Not always, pre-covid occasianally something would ship from Chicago if it wasn't stocked in Santa Fe Springs (15 mins from me) Bot now I frequently come across part nos that are 4-6 weeks delivery. Had that with some material yesterday, and some metric fasteners a few weeks ago.
 
He had to be talking about MSC. McMaster doesn't discount anything, and they
don't do sales, and they don't do free shipping.. Which I'm OK with, I don't feel
the need to play "blue light special" constantly when I need stuff to make money.

I appreciate an occasional sale. 5 or 10% at X-mas.. But UP TO35% off for 2 days every 3
weeks.. That's BS.. Just give me a fair price every day. I don't mind waiting to buy a new TV until
just before the super bowl, or waiting for black Friday to buy an Insta-Pot. But when I need a tool,
I need it now.. Its not a game, its not a luxury, its a F'n business. And MSC thinks they are K-mart.

My favorite McM story is about the large packaging company around the corner from the Mcmaster Santa Fe Springs ware house.

The hot shot accounts manager at this packaging plant called up McM

"we're a huge packaging company, we buy a lot of stuff from you, as with our other vendors we expect you to give us a discount"
"McMaster doesn't give discounts to customers regardless of who you are"
"But we insist, we're a multi billion dolar company and we expect a discount"
"OK as of now your account is terminated!"


I know this had happened as they then had to order all their stuff thru one of their vendors who's a customer of mine. Lasted about a year before they were allowed to order again.
 
McMaster could raise their prices by, I dunno, 50% and we'd probably still use them. Not having to search high and low for stuff and knowing it will arrive when needed is worth a huge amount in the grand scheme of things. It's expensive to search for stuff, expensive to fill out purchase requests and get approval and expensive for purchasing to actually buy it. It's all man-hours. McMaster is a known quantity and our buying process is very streamlined compared to other vendors. They end up being the lowest overall cost source.
 
It's funny I swore off MSC years ago, hard to search website and posted prices were always way too high unless you qualified for a discount. On a recent order however I was pleasantly surprised when MSC was 30% less than McMaster and figured maybe they were getting more competitive?

Anyone else have similar experiences?

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I used to buy a lot from Enco, things like end mills, coolant, etc. because they had a nice selection and great prices and fast shipping from Nevada. That was nice until MSC bought them up and closed them down. MSC prices are way too high, much higher than Enco so I will go to McMaster Carr, Amazon or even eBay for odds and ends.

I also used to buy from Grainger, but they have so many levels of discounts that are unavailable tp privateers such as myself that I stay away now.
 
I also used to buy from Grainger, but they have so many levels of discounts that are unavailable tp privateers such as myself that I stay away now.

Zoro, which is the online branch of Grainger is much better, worth looking at. I'll never understand Grainger's pricing, but clearly they figured out they missing out on all the small guys like us, and came up with Zoro
 
I have used them for years, they are 1 days shipping away over in Atlanta, and I get a discount that makes their prices about the same as anywhere else.
I used to put in an order for several things, they'd all come from Atl. in 1 box the next day.
Now, it seems like what they have locally isn't much. I ordered a tap, some compression fittings, a taper pin reamer, and some taper pins.
Tap came in one 8" box almost a week later.
Reamer (showed instock in Atl) took about 5 days, in its own box.
Taper pins still have not arrived, they are being shipped out of Salt Lake City.
Compression fittings were drop shipped by manuf.
I get free shipping too, so (3) 8" boxes from all over the country, plus the drop ship, this cannot be a good way to make money.

I guess I will join Team McMaster Carr.

I've been doing business with McMaster for over 35 years. Only one time did I get shipments from multiple sources. In that case the shipping cost was nearly the same as the cost of the items. I called and asked that if in the future items were out of stock in Chicago they give me an email notice rather than ship from all across the country. I'll decide if the items are needed in a time short enough to justify the additional cost. I generally set my order points and quantities so that I can complete the jobs at hand with what's in stock, and overnight shipment isn't a necessity.
 
I also detest businesses that are constantly putting stuff 'on sale' or have continual coupons.

I've heard that Sears and JC Penney are case studies in some colleges on how to NOT run a business....they essentially trained customers never to spend money with them until the item was on sale / deep discount.

Excellent point! I worked for a cruise line many years ago who finally trained all their customers to wait until the last minute to purchase their perishable inventory. The company wondered fearlessly into bankruptcy.
 
+1 on McMaster not discounting anything for anyone, though honestly I like not having to play games. I've ended up with a few split shipments over the years, but it's generally not a big deal.
One place I worked at never listed shipping cost from McMaster, and it never showed up on the bill, even when you didn't send it to a company location. I finally called them up one day and asked "Just how on earth did we get free shipping from you?". The response "We don't ship free to anyone." After I explained that there was never a shipping item on our invoices they looked in to it. Turns out someone back at corporate (I worked at a 100k employee company) had directed them to put all ground shipping charges on the company FedEx or UPS account thinking we had a better shipping costs negotiated than they did. Not sure who's favor that worked out in, but it did explain why it wasn't on the invoice as a dollar amount, and no, we were not getting free shipping even if it didn't hit our project budget.
 
They do discount. I get a discount, see first post. I am having real doubts that the discount is worth it with the poor performance I see out of them lately.
 
I bet they get free McMaster-Carr catalogs, too!
Who DOES NOT get free MC catalogs?
I've never paid for one in more than 25 years.
If I had to PAY for a catalog, I promise you, I'm going elsewhere!

Besides, I am a huge fan of the website and (slightly less so) the app.
Searching is so much easier.
 
No problem with MSC or McMaster. I am on the East coast and on a rare occasion I can call the West coast branch of McMaster and get a much needed widget overnighted to me.
MSC does have a discount for a lot of what I buy, McMaster prices are generally good and shipping is always UPS next day early AM.
Purchasing can be a huge time sink and seeing what you need in stock and knowing you will get it tomorrow works for me.
 
Purchasing can be a huge time sink and seeing what you need in stock and knowing you will get it tomorrow works for me.
This is why I use McMaster, if I order early enough it'll show up in the afternoon. They have most everything I need, its usually good qualitly and its easy to find and order. Sure I could search around and find a better deal on most things, but probably not enough that its worth my time.

I still don't ever get a paper catalog though :-/
 
Who DOES NOT get free MC catalogs?
I've never paid for one in more than 25 years.
If I had to PAY for a catalog, I promise you, I'm going elsewhere!

Besides, I am a huge fan of the website and (slightly less so) the app.
Searching is so much easier.
McM catalogs are strange things. I’ve seen people hold them as status symbols at past employers. Some places are tiny and seem to get a new one all the time. Other places it’s impossible. One place I worked easily gave them 100k/year and we still couldn’t get them to send us a free catalog annually.
 








 
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