MFG.com good/bad/ugly?

Who uses them? And what do you think? At almost 600 per month it better be pretty good. Let me know what you think!

Don't take the red pill.

I've nerver heard anything good about them. Lots of bad press. I don't want to be low bidder on something that is quoted to death. Lots of time spent quoting with no results is what I have heard. Looked at it a while ago and was warned, so I did not go for it.

MFG.com good/bad/ugly?

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All 3......
Good at getting your money
Bad at getting you real work
Ugly when you think about all the time & money you lost on them.

Disclaimer:
Having never sent them one thin dime, I speak from the cheap seats, but have developed
an opinion from the unanimous -BAD- first hand reports I have read alllll over the net about them.
And general 'too good go be true' hype they push also.

It continues to amaze me they are still in business based on said negative reports on users experience's.
You would 'think' word would get around.....these days.

dkmc said:

All 3......
Good at getting your money
Bad at getting you real work
Ugly when you think about all the time & money you lost on them.

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Couldn't have said it better myself.

Don't waste your time. (Unless you're in China, and get your manufacturing company subsidized by the govt so you can make the parts for less than the material cost).

But playing devils advocate here, there was just an article on MMS about a 5 axis shop that got their big break through MFG.com. So, someone out there is getting that work and making money at it.

Guess who advertises on MMS?

RJT said:

Guess who advertises on MMS?

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I think Modern Machine Shop actually helped start MFG.com, back when it was still called MFGQuote.

I tried it for 6 months at 450.00/month. I got a total of $880.00 worht of work and had to chase half of that trying to collect. You will not see any good stories about them except in articles about them or thier own site. If you want to blow your money send it to me.
Just my .02 worth.
Michael

Has anyone but me been told that even though the contract is a year that you can cancel it in the first couple of months if you are not happy with it?

I fell for their story when I was just opening my doors and needed any work I could find. Quoted a bunch of things and never got one order. Often the good jobs went to china for about what the material would cost.

Thanks allot, I was kinda turned off by the $595 per month up front. I mean $7100 a year just to run a website............Thats pretty damn good money. But thanks for all your input. Just figured I could get a couple of jobs to the gaps, Things have slowed here pretty bad lately. Keep your comments coming. Maybe we can find someone here that has had good luck with them. Thanks



Butch

I've approached this from a different stand point. Although I have an interest in learning, I only own a coulpe welders, torch, sawzal, and a recently purchased shear.

I heard about MFGQuote from this website and put a few RFQ's on it. I found exactly what you guys have already mentioned: a large variance in pricing, lots of non-USA bids, ect.

In contrast though, I was able to use that website to help me find a couple machine shops in the USA to do my work for me. I'm not a 'big fish', but I have enough pride to keep my work in the USA whenever possible. Now that I've found these two machine shops (each with different specialties), I go directly to them to bid stuff out.

Without that website, though, I would have been very limited on machine shops (local to me).

So, that's a perspective from the other side of the road. I certainly see where you guys are coming from too.

Have a good day!
Michael

I tried them for 2 months when I had my own stamping shop. Quoted my ass off. Just for grins I qouted on a job that I could produce in a cnc punch press, the parts would have come from scrap off fall. So I qoute no material costs, no overhead costs, no shipping costs, no plating costs, just the cost of one cardboard box ($.39) for 2500 parts This was a price of .000156 each. I recieved a response that the buyer selected another company for less. Thats when I knew this was a sham, I am not sure that it was a real job.

Give us a print and we will get you some cost saving, we have alot of companies out there willing to do the job you need to cut costs, or you union boys better take some conseccions or we will farm the work out. Use your imagination.

Copied from an old post

To get any decent work out of MFG.com you have to quote the stuff that most shops don't want or can't do.
We used them on and off for a few years. We got a job from a shipyard in Virginia. It was a pretty complex part. Only 2 bids and we got the job. We developed a good relationship with that customer. We got quite a bit more work out of them.
On another job we got stuck for $23,000.00, Does anyone want any sample breech blocks, we have a few hundred.
On the regular simple parts, we couldn't even come close.
We have allways covered the cost of the subscription, but we will not be using them again. It was way too much work for very little return.

Good Luck
Sam

I was with them for about 1 year. Yes you can quit them whenever you want. I just flat out told them that I wasn't getting any work and the work I did get was never getting paid for. MFGQuote was a good idea I think but no screening of the companies putting the jobs up was my gripe.

Has anyone been able to cancel their contract with them prior to the one year term? If so how did you do it?

Techguy

96Mustang460cid said:

I've approached this from a different stand point. Although I have an interest in learning, I only own a coulpe welders, torch, sawzal, and a recently purchased shear.

I heard about MFGQuote from this website and put a few RFQ's on it. I found exactly what you guys have already mentioned: a large variance in pricing, lots of non-USA bids, ect.

In contrast though, I was able to use that website to help me find a couple machine shops in the USA to do my work for me. I'm not a 'big fish', but I have enough pride to keep my work in the USA whenever possible. Now that I've found these two machine shops (each with different specialties), I go directly to them to bid stuff out.

Without that website, though, I would have been very limited on machine shops (local to me).

So, that's a perspective from the other side of the road. I certainly see where you guys are coming from too.

Have a good day!
Michael

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Hey Michael,

I am one of the businesses benefiting from buyers such as yourself on MFG.com. I have been a member now since March 2006 and I am signing on again for another year. One of my biggest customers is from MFG.com that I have been doing work for since 2006. Now in the last year I have become one of their top three suppliers and they are a huge part of our business. We do almost all their prototype work, and once approved we do the production runs afterwards. We are not a rock bottom pricing supplier either, we just provide our customers with outstanding quality parts delivered on time with (as they have told us) excellent customer service!

I would never have found this customer without MFG either because they are located in New Jersey and we are in Massachusetts. We also have a few other consistent repeat customers from around the USA that we intitially did work for on MFGQuote, and they now send us RFQ's without going through MFG, nor do we compete with other suppliers through MFGquote, because we have proved ourselves to be a valuable supplier to those customers and they in turn rely on us for getting the jobs done, not only right away, but right away, and done right the first time!

Despite what all the nay sayers say, and there are an overwhelming number......I have been very successful using the service. For what it's worth.....I seldom make enough to cover the cost of the service each month by acquiring a job here or there, however, given the fact I have repeat customers coming in every month who started out as MFG buyers, I am WAY ahead cost wise at the end of the year, making the yearly fee a drop in the bucket when it comes to advertising (I also get work from the web, thanks to MFG keeping my company listed in the top ten), which for all intents and purposes is the main reason I still sign up each year.....not to mention, I seem to inevitably always end up with at least one repeat customer each year that helps grow my business while I sit at my desk and run my business, rather than spend countless time lost in cold calls and dropping off business cards, which for me..........a key phrase here....."which for me"......has never been successful.

There are a lot of people in this forum who have known of me now for a couple of years at least. I'm not a bullshitter, and I'm not affiliated with MFG.com.

For me.......again, key phrase here....."For Me"......MFG.com works beautifully......I've learned how to work the system......I know fairly well, which buyers to quote, and which to avoid, and I am targeting a certain type of buyer, that I know I can be of great service to, and for the most part, once I do a job or two for them, the relationship of buyer to supplier continues to grow and we find ourselves becoming another repeat supplier found from the comfort of my office chair.

We are "in effect" like one of the machine shops that Michael uses for his work. We try to stay local (300 mile radius) and we try our best to meet customer requirements, that will keep that customer sending his RFQ's to us, but just as he found out......there are shops out there, that do great work, for a fair price, that suit his need, and they are NOT local..........that is exactly where my business comes in, and we have had very good success in becoming one of those suppliers, just as the ones for Michael did who are not local.

So....before I get my brains beat in by those of you steadfastly opposed to MFG......I know it is "NOT" for "EVERYONE".........but for "ME"....it works!

I have no problem paying the yearly fee, because in the long run......"MY" dividends continue to outweigh the investment!

Good Luck in what ever you choose to do!

Best Regards,
Russ

(I also get work from the web, thanks to MFG keeping my company listed in the top ten),

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THAT is one point that I WILL brag on MFG aboot.

I usta-was a member for a few yrs and Mitch kept my name ratt at the top of the google search. Literally #1 if you were searching for what I doo - where I doo it. (Git that?)

I doo think that there is viable werk for someone that wants to doo (and quote and quote and ....) onesy/twosy werk like Russ mentioned.

I found quoting production qtys completely pointless and only would quote one here and there when something looked "Ratt up our alley" (dirt rd?) and even then those never seemed to ever git released. I fealt that I was just helping to beat a current supplier down.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

From my experience, a buyer who is buying any significant amount of precision machine work will usually have WAY MORE local and regional machine shops bugging him for the work than he could ever keep satisfied. (It's kinda like an attractive, sexy, woman...she will have more offers from men than she can ever hope to take care of...)

So, why the need for MFG? Other than to squeeze the local shops down? Or maybe to find specialty services not available locally??

I've used mfg as a supplier to launch my business. I found several few shops and a few that really screwed me. I ended up with $2k in parts I couldn't use. I wish I wasn't such a good supplier and actually looked closely at the parts before I paid. I can make better parts on my $1,500 lathe than some hack made with a $220K mazak.

Through this experience, I felt it necessary to make my own parts so I bought a few more pieces of equipment. I thought about joining as a supplier, but it doesn't sound like I should.

When I was on there as a customer, I only accepted bids from USA suppliers. I feed neighbors not a foreign subsidized gov't company.