Sourcing 30k shcs and fasteners. Distributor suggestions?

Speccing a system and need to source roughly 30,000 fasteners. Mostly shcs, some button, some flat. Sizes from 4-40 to 1.0-8. About 1/3 each black oxide, 18-8 and zinc plated.

Sent out a couple rfqs to the big boys already, and surprisingly just building a cart in McMaster w/ standard qty’s was the cheapest. That makes me feel like I’m missing something or contacting the wrong people …

Distro has to be stateside due to requirements, but country of origin is open.

If McMaster is the go, that’s not really an issue but I was honestly shocked that ordering 3000 1/4-20 1” shcs from them 100 box count at a time came back cheaper than 2 1500 count boxes from the 3 quotes I got back. Maybe qtys in the 1000s isn’t enough to bother quoting out? Any suggestions on who to contact?

If you go to somebody for a quote on fasteners, you better be asking for A LOT.

If they wanted to deal with you and your quantities, they would have had a price on it
online.

3000 SHCS isn't really a lot. Buy them per piece at the hardware store, and then its
a lot. But in boxes of 100, not really.

McMaster-Carr is really pretty good on fastener pricing, at least in the qyt's I've
ever needed. Think of the qty's they buy, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a 1000
boxes of 1/4-20 1" long SHCS on the shelf, and they probably blow through it quick. I buy
a box every year or 2, and that's just to have for fixturing and what not.

Well yeah, but for example when Brighton Best’s website says “We only sell through distributor network” and then I contact my regional distributor, the distributor says “sure, send me a line item sheet and I’ll quote it for you,” that’s what I do. Likewise with lawton. And when holo-krome’s site says “for quantities greater than catalog, please contact us for a quote,” that’s also what I do.

Perhaps you’re right though, the break only comes at tens / hundreds of thousands of single line items.

upthebikes said:

Well yeah, but for example when Brighton Best’s website says “We only sell through distributor network” and then I contact my regional distributor, the distributor says “sure, send me a line item sheet and I’ll quote it for you,” that’s what I do. Likewise with lawton. And when holo-krome’s site says “for quantities greater than catalog, please contact us for a quote,” that’s also what I do.

Perhaps you’re right though, the break only comes at tens / hundreds of thousands of single line items.

Click to expand...

I've been dealing with some same-as-except fasteners lately where a standard one doesn't quite work.
10k of a single line item gets people to respond, but not with good prices. The bigger players I work with won't quote less than 100k/year of a single screw. At that point you end up around 1/3 the price of buying a box of 100 from McMaster, and the prices really don't change much from there to at least 25M/year. At that point it doesn't really matter if you want a perfectly stock item or a custom because the tooling cost vanishes with that volume.

While it's mildly disappointing that the break for volume isn't greater, it's really a bit amazing that small volumes are as cheap as they are.

Try ASMC Industrial. asmc.net.
Talk to Alex.

They are good for medium qty screw and fastener sourcing.

upthebikes said:

Any suggestions on who to contact?

Click to expand...

KBC Tools & Machinery

CarlBoyd

yup, 10K of a small fastener like 1/4-20 isn't going to get you even a "hi how ya doin".

Now that quantity of a 2 3/4-12 X 14 NAS 12 point flange head in duplex, well THAT would get you a response!

I have purchased many items over my career; from pennies to tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars each. One thing that I can tell you is that there is always a bit of wiggle room in any price they give you. How do you get another 10%, 5%, 2% or even just 1% off?

Talk to them. I do not like just quoting another price and asking if they can beat it. I have worked for people who did that and many times it worked. But they remember and the next quote will have that percentage built into it so they can allow you to talk them down.

What I do like is simply asking if they can give me a bit off the total order if I place it right now. Ask for 5% or 10% and see where it goes. Perhaps you only get 1% or 2%, but that's something.

Another approach is how the bill will be paid. There are expenses attached to every billing method: credit card companies charge a percentage, their own 30 or 60 day credit will have billing costs, etc. Ask if they can provide a discount if you pay in a preferred manner.

Just today I was negotiating a small purchase, probably just $100 or so. They are presently considering a small discount. Will I get it? Don't know yet. I could have just placed a web order, but I talked to a person and asked for it.

The key here is to TALK to them.

Mid valley distributing in Fresno ca

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Don’t give up. There is a world of fastener distributors out there. Brighton or Holochrome aren’t going to be interested. We deal with Jenson Fastener in LA at work and at the previous job I bought fasteners in that kind of volume from Cordova Bolt.

Suburban Bolt and Supply | Providing Industrial Products Throughout Michigan


Mike

for a few hundred to a thousand pcs, i have a local fastener supply i talk to. tons out there everywhere.

Fastenersuperstore.com should be good for your quantities. They are a Kane Bridge front end and sell in big boxes. Stuff ships very promptly out of Illinois.

We use Class C Components in Minnesota. We used to use SW Anderson Co, who I think has offices around the midwest.