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Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

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Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#461

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #78
ISL wrote: post #62

McMaster 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?"

It may be hard to find but there is a very good episode of 99% Invisible (are there bad ones?) that goes in depth on industrial tricycles. Only thing I can say to help you find it is that I think it was a 2015 episode, sorry.

Basically they are used to transport parts around large warehouses or factories.

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#462

Post by tomcam »

phasetransition wrote: post #397
tomcam wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can send them a box of loose parts, no part numbers, no markings, and they'll go through it, figure out what's what, and refund you for it That is insane. Mad props to them

I'm sure they have internal horror stories of the practice, but they do it. When we sold an old company to a PE group, all the McMaster loose stuff in the warehouse went back to them stacked in boxes on a pallet for them to work through. I wouldn't be surprised to learn our CM did the same thing after the sale.

That kind of service must require tons of human intervention and employees who worked there for decades, no? I mean the catalog is humongous.

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#463

Post by antisthenes »

jrockway wrote: post #285
antisthenes wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because labeling items with attributes and filling them correctly is manual work on behalf of a multitude of 3rd party sellers. Some of them do a decent job, most don't. There are also incentives to completely ignore parametric search and throw as many ads at the customer as possible instead of relevant results.

I wanted to show up with an argument about how third-party sellers were lazy, but I think Amazon can fix this if they want to. If typing "4GB SD card" is parsed by their search engine into "select * from items where storage_capacity='4GB' and product='SD card'", then sellers that don't update their metadata simply won't sell another card ever again. As a result, they will instantly update their data and make sure it'…

The 3rd party sellers are penalized already to some degree, and Amazon has begun suspending certain listings (you can still buy them if you have the direct link, they just won't appear in search) for missing certain attributes.

But IMO, it's not enough in some categories. Especially where item parameters and specs are critical for its interoperability and functionality.

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#464

Post by InternalFrame »

Maarten88 wrote: post #89
syntaxing wrote: post #49

MechE 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.

I only see coarse thread offered in stainless, but there's a pretty nice selection of M8 x 20 set screws here (though now I realize, none with Torx drive, my bad): https://www.mcmaster.com/set-screws/thread-size~m8/length~20...

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#465

Post by jamincan »

ShuffleBoard wrote: post #447

OMG I frikkin hate McMaster's navigation and comparison options. Their standardization is even quite sloppy, i.e. some screw vendors apparently include the head height in the length spec, and you don't find this out until your box of #2-56's show up for your precision fixture and are ~1mm too short. I always tolerated McMaster's crappy UX as just a symptom of how MEs are willing to tolerate more shaggery than CS type…

Go to the product detail and they show precise measurements and often CAD models of the part.

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#466

Post by williamscales »

kortex wrote: post #192
williamscales wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't love McMaster due to their insane over packaging and environmental issues, but this > McMaster sells a very small breadth of things with incredible depth in its selection. is not the case. They sell virtually anything anyone in an industrial environment could possibly be interested in. See other comments about "industrial trikes" and feel free to choose some arbitrary thing and try to find it there. This is t…

What's wrong with mcmaster's packaging? Every time I've ordered, it's been plastic ziplocks or carboard boxes in a main box stuffed with brown paper. That's about as minimal as you can get. If you have a problem with that, well, I have some bad news about how commerce, medical, and industry go about wastage in general. Bought 1000' of foobar filler rod and only used 50'? Chuck the rest cause it'll cost more in labor…

Maybe they have changed, I'll admit it has been a few years. But I would routinely get a gigantic box that was 99% empty space. For example, I ordered ~8 feet of a specific brass rod (~1/4 inch diameter). Instead of a tube they used a rectilinear box that was big enough to fit a human inside.

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#467

Post by shoshino »

tomcam wrote: post #462
phasetransition wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they have internal horror stories of the practice, but they do it. When we sold an old company to a PE group, all the McMaster loose stuff in the warehouse went back to them stacked in boxes on a pallet for them to work through. I wouldn't be surprised to learn our CM did the same thing after the sale.

That kind of service must require tons of human intervention and employees who worked there for decades, no? I mean the catalog is humongous.

Knowing the customer’s order history reduces the search space in most cases.

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#468

Post by switchbak »

auscad wrote: post #213
monstertank wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they ship to Australia? Any idea if that is also comparable to Amazon delivery speeds?

Probably not. They don’t ship to Canada. Don’t be fooled if you’re able to place an order with a non-US address. I was able to, before getting an email the next day when they realized their mistake.

They'll ship to Canada (as far as I understand), but only for "serious" clients that make it worth the cost to them.

Which is a shame, I'd love to be able to use them.

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#469

Post by loonster »

roflyear wrote: post #365
loonster wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a commonly used item, it would be much more efficient to pay an entry level CAD guy to draw up a parametric screw part. Add in toolsolids of all the subtracts that the component will do (taps, CBore, clearance), and supplier call outs. It starts to become efficient.

For like a $.5 part from McMaster? Are you on drugs? McMaster is "expensive" but it isn't like they are charging a crazy amount of money. They are just expensive. I still use them over randos tho bc I know I'm going to get what I ordered. I never did not, but if I did, I'd have the correct part maybe even same day.

The cost of the part doesn't matter. The cost of my time does.

For common components, I need a parametric part so that I can instantly change the length, size or type. If my M12 becomes an M16, I want all the taps and C'Bores to adjust without any further input from myself.

For more expensive parts, it's nice to have a homegrown parametric part to minimize potential missorders.

Re: Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used

#470

Post by InitialLastName »

thechao wrote: post #87
iancmceachern wrote: post #34

Mechanical Engineer and product designer here. I've been using mcmaster daily for 20 years to do my job. It is definitely the standard by which all others are judged. I'll gladly pay 2, 3, 5, even 10x the price to get it from McMaster. The service, the CAD models, I have what I need the next day. As an example of the level of their service, you can send them a box of loose parts, no part numbers, no markings, and the…

We had piles of their yellow books laying around the house when I was a grad student. Definitely good toilet-book material.

Electrical Engineers traditionally use the Mouser catalog for that.
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