4 ms·

Wow, the McMaster-Carr's site is downright awesome. I wish I could use it in Europe. I'd like to hug this site developers.

raleighm 6y ago
Same here. I have no tool/hardware needs at the moment but I'm having a blast navigating the site.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
It's kinda small for my liking, but I've got a big screen and didn't bother zooming in. Only niggly thing is that page clicks create a spinner; one thing they could do to improve is to pre-render everything, given that what I clicked on was just category pages. I've had great experiences with Gatsby on Netlify in that regard, we've built a number of websites using it. With Gatsby you get the benefits of a React webapp but without the downsides, things like preloading on hover, instant rendering, service workers acting as content caches, etc.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  > With Gatsby you get the benefits of a React webapp but without the downsides Instead Gatsby just brings its own set of downsides. Gatsby does not scale very well and has horrific dev and build times when it needs to ingest a medium quantity of entries.
Bayart 6y ago
Yeah, it's way better than Conrad or Manomano, who both use the same shitty layout you get from every etailer : gigantic full-page promotional material and some top categories in the middle to start navigating things. And in the end you have to tinker with filters for 5 minutes before narrowing it down to probably maybe the right part.
- tecleandor 6y ago
  Haven't tried Conrad, but Manomano it's a mess if you wanna look for something concrete. Once you enter in a category, it's like searching in eBay. It's so difficult to search by brand, model or specs...
kwhitefoot 6y ago
I think one of the reasons that it is so fast is that all the small images are monochrome PNGs. Really well thought out and to my eyes it looks rather stylish.
japanuspus 6y ago
Yup, worked in a US lab back around 2005. Now back in the EU, I find that in most areas online stores have caught up, but on hardware nothing yet comes close to McMaster-Carr. One thing I only realized when living in the US is that the reason that online shopping is so much more advanced in the US than in the EU is not just the more homogeneous market. Due to tax rules (state sales tax on mail orders) mail order has always had a competitive edge in the US, leading to a many companies already being set up with a deep back-catalogue and strong inventory metadata when the internet hit.
- tecleandor 6y ago
  When buying electronic components, either RS or Mouser (can't remember which one right now) is super slow and fails a lot. Something like this would be awesome. (I know it's millions of references, but...)
  - myself248 6y ago
    Octopart. You're welcome. ;)
mbesto 6y ago
I work a lot with distribution/manufacturers and I always use McMaster as the de facto way to do things.

raleighm 6y ago

Same here. I have no tool/hardware needs at the moment but I'm having a blast navigating the site.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

It's kinda small for my liking, but I've got a big screen and didn't bother zooming in. Only niggly thing is that page clicks create a spinner; one thing they could do to improve is to pre-render everything, given that what I clicked on was just category pages. I've had great experiences with Gatsby on Netlify in that regard, we've built a number of websites using it. With Gatsby you get the benefits of a React webapp but without the downsides, things like preloading on hover, instant rendering, service workers acting as content caches, etc.

madeofpalk 6y ago
> With Gatsby you get the benefits of a React webapp but without the downsides Instead Gatsby just brings its own set of downsides. Gatsby does not scale very well and has horrific dev and build times when it needs to ingest a medium quantity of entries.

Bayart 6y ago

Yeah, it's way better than Conrad or Manomano, who both use the same shitty layout you get from every etailer : gigantic full-page promotional material and some top categories in the middle to start navigating things. And in the end you have to tinker with filters for 5 minutes before narrowing it down to probably maybe the right part.

tecleandor 6y ago
Haven't tried Conrad, but Manomano it's a mess if you wanna look for something concrete. Once you enter in a category, it's like searching in eBay. It's so difficult to search by brand, model or specs...

kwhitefoot 6y ago

I think one of the reasons that it is so fast is that all the small images are monochrome PNGs. Really well thought out and to my eyes it looks rather stylish.

japanuspus 6y ago

Yup, worked in a US lab back around 2005. Now back in the EU, I find that in most areas online stores have caught up, but on hardware nothing yet comes close to McMaster-Carr. One thing I only realized when living in the US is that the reason that online shopping is so much more advanced in the US than in the EU is not just the more homogeneous market. Due to tax rules (state sales tax on mail orders) mail order has always had a competitive edge in the US, leading to a many companies already being set up with a deep back-catalogue and strong inventory metadata when the internet hit.

tecleandor 6y ago
When buying electronic components, either RS or Mouser (can't remember which one right now) is super slow and fails a lot. Something like this would be awesome. (I know it's millions of references, but...)
- myself248 6y ago
  Octopart. You're welcome. ;)

mbesto 6y ago

I work a lot with distribution/manufacturers and I always use McMaster as the de facto way to do things.