This website is really good
Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
171–180 of 501 posts
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#172McMaster is a great choice when you can value your time. There is no comparison shipping. You need an industrial tricycle that gets the job done? Great. Add an industrial tricycle to your cart. Unless there is a meaningful difference between models, there will be only one choice. It will be curated and it will do what you generally expect it to do. You'll pay more than you can get it for elsewhere, but it will do the…
Please tell me there's a story behind an "industrial tricycle?"
The best tool for moving a person and up to about 300kg of stuff at 2-20km/h over nice surfaces.
Never need to charge/fuel it. A coaster brake model out of the weather can go years without any maintenance. Will work for decades with $50 worth of parts. Some models fit anywhere wheelchair accessible. Cheap enough that you don't need keys. Stores anywhere.
In an industrial setting they are extremely useful.
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They've somehow got their logistics COMPLETELY nailed. In addition, you can generally get a useful human on the bloody phone at these companies! The delivery priority is because their customers are losing real money until that shipment of parts to repair their production line comes in. If those parts don't come in when they're supposed to, the people who cut checks are gonna start yelling. However, I tend to prefer…
MSC is sooooooo expensive for tooling though. Or pretty much anything. Unless you're a business who cut a deal with them so you don't pay list price. I also can't find anything on their website, what a terrible search and catalog functionality they have. Like the opposite of Mcmaster.
Really? Admittedly I haven't used them in earnest since before the plague ...
However, a quick look shows them to be dead on price for Mitutoyo dial calipers. Boring heads look a bit more expensive than I remember. Milling bits seem normal price-wise as well.
Who is your go to? Machine tooling is always expensive and I'm always looking for places that are cheaper.
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#174Agreed. Used it numerous times and am totally impressed with the quality of their front end and the service
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please tell me there's a story behind an "industrial tricycle?"
We use these in military aviation across the world. Stupidly useful when you’ve got 100+ lbs of tools to run out to a down aircraft that needs fixed to make a mission. Also in shipyards, for similar reasons.
I can't talk about details but I know of large industry-leading aerospace manufacturers who don't use MMC for flight parts because they need batch-level part tracking for failure investigations, and MMC doesn't offer that.
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#176McMaster is great. This article is also completely glossing over another reason to use them: Their shipping is somehow insanely fast. Almost everything is next-day delivery, even for standard shipping. They've somehow got their logistics COMPLETELY nailed. I believe they have their own agreements with USPS/FedEx/etc... McMaster is generally not the cheapest, but they're almost always the fastest and the easiest. Mach…
I'll second that. I ordered an 8-foot-long aluminum bar for $25, which, at the time, was too long to ship with traditional shippers. So, a semi trailer showed up at my door. Shipping cost $8.
My experience around their shipping was the opposite— surprise outrageous fee to get fedex to deliver a few feet of PVC. This was back before they showed you shipping prices up front.
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll second that. I ordered an 8-foot-long aluminum bar for $25, which, at the time, was too long to ship with traditional shippers. So, a semi trailer showed up at my door. Shipping cost $8.
How can they make money doing that?
Most orders pay full cost of shipping. This was an atypical experience.
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#178Last I checked they don’t deliver to Canada so not the best site I have used as I couldn’t order the parts I needed. They were the only one who had the part I needed so had to get an American friend to buy it and ship it to me afterwards. I really hope they can see Canadians would buy from them if we could.
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#179MechE here as well. An alternative to McMaster is Misumi. Misumi is nice because you can order parts that are made to order (imagine a rod with the specific thread and length). No next day shipping like McMaster but being able to buy a custom “off the shelf” part without making a special internal part number is huge (so you don’t need drawings or anything). They’ll ship you a couple books like the signature yellow bo…
> being able to buy a custom “off the shelf” part without making a special internal part number How does that work? I have been searching the internet for stainless steel M8 x 20 set screws with a torx socket, maybe uncommon but straightforward. I have yet to find these anywhere outside of having them manufactured in china by truckload - I need maybe 100.
Button head:
https://us.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/221005020675/?Category...
Cap screw: https://us.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/221005020664/?Category...
Flat head: https://us.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/221005020686/?Category...
These are just standard parts though. Misumi's real configuration flexibility comes from parts that are parametrically defined. For example you can basically design a shaft by specing the material, coating, diameter, length, tolerances, and additional parametric features (external threading, tapped holes, flats, grooves, etc).
Here's an example: https://us.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/110302399810/
Once you've specified the parameters, it generates a price table including quantity discounts.
Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
#180Now be completely honest: - If you haven't read the article, would you think this site great? My point is: no one knows what is a great e-commerce website. Is one that sells a lot? Amazon does it. Is not one that sells a lot, but that is very easy to use?
Yes, because its catalog is also a CAD library, so you can put the parts into your design and be sure the parts will fit when they arrive tomorrow. Because every part is neatly categorized, searchable by its properties. I am infuriated when shopping for clothes, computer parts, etc. because the items are rarely categorized and when they are, it isn't comprehensive so searches tend to miss out on the obvious so I end…
The not delivering to Canada was my only complaint. I had to get a US friend to buy it and ship it after to me. I didn’t think of using a fake company to get it shipped.