Could someone explain to me the deal with McMaster-Carr being stingy
with their catalog?I keep hearing how great they are, but I can't even
get them to send me a catalog (to my business). I've tried 3 times in
the last 4 years, and always the same line "we produce a limited number
of print catalogs" with an implied "you're not worthy of one". How would
they know??? The last response I got via email was even bordering on
rude.
I personaly spent a fair chunk of change at MSC last year, a few grand,
primarily because I can thumb through their catalog--which they
automatically send me eahc year--and see all my options at a glance,
without having to go online or use some kind of menu system to sort out
the contenders and click on each one to see details (argh). In fact, all
the companies that send me their catalog (J&L, MSC, Wholesale Tool,
Grainger) are getting enough profit from me each year to print several
cases of their catalogs, so what's McMaster's problem?
-Adam
adam at airraidsirens dot com
- it's actually
handier than their catalog for two reasons. First, you can search it. Second,
they offer many products that aren't in their current catalog (like machine
files) that show up on their Web page.
Their catalogs are very expensive to make and they made a conscious business
decision to only send them to companies with whom they have a reasonable
expectation of doing several hundred dollars a year in sales with.
Grant
Adam Smith wrote:
Grant Erwin wrote: (clip) Their catalogs are very expensive to make(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Maybe if they printed more, the unit cost would go down. No maybe about it.
The fixed costs of printing, including photography, design and layout, color
separations and actual press setup do not go up if the order is doubled.
My inquiry of a few years ago, submitted on a company letterhead, didn't
even warrant a response from them. I'd suggest you do what I do, which is
to avoid doing business with any company that doesn't have enough respect
for their customers to at least be gracious for their attempts to do
business with them.
Harold
It's a mystery to me also. I started a business around 1983, spent
around 2 grand the first quarter, they sent me a catalog. Sold the
business, moved, started another shop with a different name, spent over
15,000 the first half year, no catalog. ???
I realize these aren't large sums of money, but WTF??
Drop me your address offline, Harold.
Jim
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This seems odd to me. I have gotten three in the past 6 years. The old ones
have been given away to posters here. I have only a small business and they
treat me like a king. I do all my ordering from their website, but a paper copy
is great to have when I am looking to solve a problem and do not know what is
availiable
On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:00:35 -0800, Grant Erwin
brought forth from the murky depths:
Feh! For them, additional catalogs cost pennies apiece and
each generate hundreds if not thousands of dollars in sales.
They're a marketing piece. A big brochure, if you will.
Perhaps McM is playing psychological games. Uncle Bob sez:
"If something is hard to get, it must be valuable."
*(Robert Cialdini, Ed)
--
If it weren't for jumping to conclusions some of us wouldn't get any exercise.
"One of my good customers called me a while back and said he had the new
McMaster-Carr cat but that they didn't buy from them. He wanted to know
if I wanted the book. I jumped at the chance to replace my old dog eared
copy.
Doug Arthurs
Doug Arthurs wrote: .(clip) I jumped at the chance to replace my old dog
eared copy.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Seems to me that if McMaster-Carr is that worried about the cost of
supplying catalogs, they could SELL them--then apply the purchase price as a
discount on the first order. I wonder if they're reading this.
I wonder if another aspect to this policy might have to do with avoiding
arguments
with people over prices in the printed catalog. If most folks have to shop
via the
Web, it's easier to keep pricing up to date.
When I started setting up my basement shop some years back, I got a copy
of the MSC catalog from the local office by just walking in and politely
asking for one. The younger guy there talked about their web site, and
I said yeah, that's nice, but you can't flip pages on a web site. And
a catalog is an invitation to browse and see stuff and say darn, I gotta
get me one of those. That was when the other guy not only pulled out a
new in-the-box catalog but asked me if I wanted a CD-ROM to go with it.
Tove
The catalog is much better for browsing. One day, while waiting for
an item at the Atlanta will-call desk, paged through the catalog and
found at least five more items that I "needed".=20
I have one suggestion for them: Offer the catalog for sale. List it
prominently on the home page, and the first page of the catalog
itself. =20
I'd bet that if they printed an extra 1000 catalogs and offered them
for $20,00 each, they'd be gone in the first month.
(The ones they ship to companies that don't need them end up
disappearing quickly on eBay.)
To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@"
Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.
OK, everyone here who wants a McMaster catalog: Go to their web-mail
page and offer to buy one. Give a price you think reasonable to cover
printing and shipping. If they get enough requests, they may realize
there's a opportunity for profit in catalog sales.
To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@"
Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.
I must be spending enough, I just got a new one two years in a row, up
from every other year. I spend several grand with them last year.
And yes, I have #'s 106 and 107 available for the cost of postage and a
box, to the first two respondents via direct email. Due to various news
servers delays, a direct email to me is the easiest way to determine the
first two responses.
Jon
My theory is that they send a new catalog after you've
accumulated about $1500-2000 in purchases since the last
catalog. I get one every 2 years or so, and over the past
10 years the arrival of a new catalog seems to correlate
pretty well with the actual level of purchases.
Ned Simmons
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