Carl, they are headquartered in the Chicago suburbs, right? No wonder you get stuff fast, or I do as I just live in the Milwaukee Suburbs.
Mark Koelsch
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Here's how they ship so fast.
McMaster-Carr has 5 regional warehouse locations around the US population centers: NJ, Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland and Los Angeles. One reason why you get amazing delivery times via ground service is that at each warehouse they have trailers from various common carriers and they fill those trailers in the early evening which are then driven to various regional common carrier distribution centers for sorting and next day ground delivery.
For example, my company is located in Andover, MA 30 miles north of Boston. The NY/NJ warehouse is located in Robbinsville, NJ. If I place an order by ~6 pm, it is picked, packed and placed on a UPS tractor-trailer prepositioned at the MMC shipping dock and driven to the UPS New England Regional Distribution Center in Chelmsford, MA located 30 miles NW of Boston by ~3-4 AM (~ 270 miles, 4.5 hours driving time). It is resorted and placed in a local delivery truck and I typically receive it by ~1:15 PM the next afternoon.
Another reason why MMC is so good is that they proactively seek the opinion of their customers, good and bad, about their experiences. Each year in a two week period, MMC send a multi-person customer service team from each of the regional centers to 100 of their larger users. Each team on the road for 2 week, conducting morning or afternoon 4 hour interviews with their users. They came to PSI about 15 years ago and since I was averaging an order a day, I was on their list. They asked good questions, listened to our comments and actually enacted several suggestions.
IMO their website and their service is second to none, and they're nice folks on top of that. Before I place an order on line, I know if the item is in stock and where it is located. If it's not in NJ (which is rare) it's usually in Chicago, and they ask you if you need it quicker, as Chicago is a 2-day ground delivery (1-day is ~ 600 milers). Their prices are fair, not necessarily the lowest but close, and it takes little time to place the order, and I know I will get it the next day 99% of the time by ground, so they are cost effective as time is money. If you have a question, you can also call them and speak with a person (and get the shipping rate before you order), and if you don't like internet ordering you can place an order over the phone, quickly.
For general orders I've found over the years if MMC doesn't have it, you probably don't need it.
A very satisfied MMC customer.
Bob
