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Zoro would not combine shiping , Grainger will

Bill D

Diamond
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Location
Modesto, CA USA
I thought Zoro tools is the low price version of Grainger. I went to place a small order for four items and Zoro would not combine shipping because, they had a discount on one item. The discount was about $2.00 off on a bag of washers. So I ordered the exact same items from the Graiger ebay site.
I paid about two more dollars for the items but saved $10.00 in shipping. I had always thought Grainger was the highest priced outfit?
They both have free shipping with a $50.00 order. Only 5.00 per order at graingers and suppose dto be the same 5.00 at Zorro.
Bill D
 
Can’t speak to the combined shipping, but I will observe I had an excellent customer service experience with Zoro. Ordered the wrong diameter pipe hanger. My error. Called them up to get a replacement. They happily sent it out, no charge, and told me to just keep the other I had wrongly ordered/received. Would have cost them or me more than it was worth to ship it back.

No hassles. No friction. They handled it great.
 
You're telling me they're still in business..?? :rolleyes5:

The last straw for me was when they sent out sale flyers without any prices. :nutter:
 
Just like anything else, you have to shop around. Some places are cheaper on certain items than others.

I've found zoro usually has better pricing than grainger or mcmaster. Especially if you wait for a sale.
 
I will just stick with McMaster, I even wish they sold more items.
 
Zoro seems to drop-ship a lot more than other vendors, which would explain why they don't combine shipping. I am pretty happy with Zoro's prices. I prefer Zoro to MSC for sure. Zoro lets you search brands, which McMaster mostly does not.
 
Zoro seems to drop-ship a lot more than other vendors,

AFAIK, Zoro is drop-ship and NOTHING ELSE.

Basically an IS/IT computer team website-leveraging "new money for old rope" off the back of direct access to the inventory Database of the Grainger parent having dispersed physical stocks AND enduring "just in time" relationships with a ton of OEM's.

So the source has a seriously high probability to be anywhere EXCEPT a "Zoro-specific" physical warehouse.

Pays to shop, but they work better for me than back when I DID go to Grainger brick-and-mortar - usually just down the road, one day job or another, about 1972 onward.

Local store usually had to get PART of our orders out of one or more OTHER "local" stores, if not centrally or from an OEM, so that added a day or two delay, and yah had to "deal with that", more than just the one chunk of time out of the workday, even if just a few minutes away.

Zoro has been faster with all that made "invisible" and no worry, if nothing else.

See also "HD Supply" and "PTS-tools".
 
I'm not that sold on Zoro. A while ago I needed a couple 3/4-10 hand taps. They had several brands and styles so I chose OSG. T they had over a dozen different taps with the same description varying in price from $38.00 to $90.00.

At the time there were no pictures of the taps, so I gave them a call. I asked every question I could think of to determine the differences. The person on the phone didn't seem all that knowledgeable which should have raised red flags. I even asked if some were thread repair taps as opposed to those designed for cutting new threads. I was assured they were all for cutting new threads, so in the end I picked the middle of the road priced ones.

When they arrived it was obvious they were thread repair taps. I called back asking to return them for the proper ones. I was told I could, but I would have to pay return shipping of $18.00. I protested saying I was assured the taps I purchased were for new threads. The response was, "You got what you ordered, if you want to return them you'll have to pay shipping."

So much for knowledgeable personnel and standing behind their mistakes.
 
I'm not that sold on Zoro. A while ago I needed a couple 3/4-10 hand taps. They had several brands and styles so I chose OSG. T they had 3 different taps with the same description varying in price from $38.00 to $55.00.

I called and asked every question I could think of to determine the differences. At the time there were no pictures of the taps, so I gave them a call. The person on the phone didn't seem all that knowledgeable which should have raised red flags. I even asked if some were thread repair taps as opposed to those designed for cutting new threads. I was assured they were all for cutting new threads, so in the end I picked the middle of the road priced ones.

When they arrived it was obvious they were thread repair taps. I called back asking to return them for the proper ones. I was told I could, but I would have to pay return shipping of $18.00. I protested saying I was assured the taps I purchased were for new threads. The response was, "You got what you ordered, if you want to return them you'll have to pay shipping."

So much for knowledgeable personnel and standing behind their mistakes.

I'd never even have considered Zoro for taps or dies.

Production Tool Supply, 1961 or so onward, rather.

Try that very tap. "RAW" as can be. Google PTS-tools 3/4"-10. Note how many options, and that the description, short and sweet as it is, even tells yah if oversized - and by how much. "All the questions you can think of" were answered before you even asked. Maybe before you were born. They have been GOOD at it since 1951.

HD supply if I have a need for utility-relevant type stuff, security fastener goods, pentasockets and the like..

"Horses for courses".

NO telephone/online chat staff can possibly know squat about goods they only ever see as the same thing on their 'puter screen as you see on your screen. Many are not even in the same STATE as the physical goods - let alone building or room.

I onct twigged to an "accent" - phone desk of a US firm, got into a chat about familiar places Makati, Metro Manila, Republic of the Philippines! They got 24 X 7 shift of coverage cheaply, good English, bright folks glad of the job.

:)

The builders of the "catalog" that is PUT on-screen have to know their s**t as to useful descriptions.

Or we are ALL f**ked!

:D
 
Production Tool Supply, 1961 or so onward, rather.

PTS is stuck in the '70's. I visited often when I worked a few miles down the street. But they won't sell in Kansas. They use a middleman for sales, so no direct contact. So I usually go to McMaster.
 
PTS is stuck in the '70's. I visited often when I worked a few miles down the street. But they won't sell in Kansas. They use a middleman for sales, so no direct contact. So I usually go to McMaster.

STARTED.. with PTS as mail-order, 1961. We were in Canonsburg, PA, our long-serving mill supply was in Greensburg (Westmoreland Supply), rep dropped-in every week. "Company" could afford that. We worker-bees had tighter budgets. Early years, they remaindered tons of brand-new goods off auto-industry model changes, plant modifications, lesser shops as had lost bids - then same-again, aerospace.

Lots of great deals, Made in USA goods, major makers,... IF you had a need that "fit". So I was "hooked" into AT LEAST "dream-booking" in between actual orders when there was any money for it!

:)

Been online ordering with PTS for some years now. Wouldn't have a klew they were any less up to date than MMC. Whose website gets the job done, and assuredly better than some. Just not as easily for ME as PTS-tools.com.

PTS have a lot of s**t.

MMC have TOO MUCH s**t to find some of it fast without getting my friggin' undershorts tangled in the damned driveshaft.

Warren Buffet seems to agree. Production Tool Supply Founder was a War Two or Korea vet IIRC, so long out of it. Berkshire Hathaway bought them about 3 years ago => PTSolutions, now.
 
Production Tool and J & L Supply were both started after WW2 with war production surplus. For majors, Henry had a bomber plant just west of town, and Chrysler had a tank plant. That is a lot of surplus tooling. There was still quite a lot still on the shelves of those companies in the '80's.

Maybe with BH ownership I will have to try them again.
 
Production Tool and J & L Supply were both started after WW2 with war production surplus. For majors, Henry had a bomber plant just west of town, and Chrysler had a tank plant. That is a lot of surplus tooling. There was still quite a lot still on the shelves of those companies in the '80's.

Maybe with BH ownership I will have to try them again.

Willow Run was but the Ghost of a shell a few years ago, my only trip to it.
USA had some damned good tooling by War Two. Wish to Hell I could buy more of the original Cle-Forge HSS-Cobalt "parabolic grind" drills ... made before China's Dalian Top-Eastern bought them up.. and 2/3rd's of all the OTHER 'top' names in our tap, die, and drill industry.

Principal of the thing. Even IF Dalian still has them making good drills AND in a US factory with US staff, the profits off it go the wrong direction for MY spend, these days and going forward.

Stone me for a tool bigot, but Payback is a Mother.....
 
You won’t get technical help from Zoro. I just saw an article and video on this the other day online. Essentially Grainger started them as an experiment to sell to markets they weren’t selling to, to sell to other industrial distributors and to have a bare bones customer service model (hence people having no clue what they are selling you). It’s really a website where you know exactly what you want or have a manufacturer part# for. The article cited they have some few hundred thousand sku’s that Grainger doesn’t have and they want to expand it. You’ll notice that you get a box with a Zoro logo on it and a Zoro packing slip in the box but rest assured it is drop shipped. Grainger is most of these companies largest customer so they send a printer to the manufacturer and tell them you ship with our paperwork and they say yes sir.

Around 4-5 years ago Zoro started raising there prices and coupons were less and less common. Just like many businesses crank up the price when the demand is higher. Also they had a dozen people when they started and now if i remember correctly have hundreds of employees.
 
You won’t get technical help from Zoro. I just saw an article and video on this the other day online. Essentially Grainger started them as an experiment to sell to markets they weren’t selling to, to sell to other industrial distributors and to have a bare bones customer service model (hence people having no clue what they are selling you).

Done a similar thing, several firms, different industries, but... exactly bass-ackwards, off what IBM and not-only had done well with.

Put BETTER support folk onto the customer's account than the OEM could afford!

Predictable result, yah become embedded as the "solution" to most ANY problem, rather than a PART OF most ALL problems.

At which point.. you, not the OEM, have come to "own" the relationship, and the customers who NEED that enough will follow you to a new OEM if need be. But not the reverse.

Not rocket science. Avoiding risk is Human nature. Lots of folk on PM know this and put it to work.

But.. the bigger the company? The faster and more firmly they turn blind and walked away from it. Costs too much to be that good.

Or DOES it REALLY?

Time spent in high-grade attention is paid for several times over by not HAVING a whole tribe of "problems" 'coz the good work is also the least problematic and most enduring work..
 
My experience with Zoro has been fantastic. IMO they have filled the gap that Enco left behind. With a 25% coupon they are the cheapest option. I normally receive items the next day, shipped from a nearby Grainger. The service was fantastic the one time I needed it (Vidmar cabinet arrived damaged, they replaced it with no hassle).
 








 
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