26 ms·
Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used
- greesil 4y agoMcMaster in general for all things high quality if I need to make something. Calipers, verniers. Tap sets. Electrically conductive TPU filament. Amazon is for crap.
- scrapcode 4y agoI worked as an engineering technician in the facilities management realm for a couple of years and this resource was a godsend for just knowing what materials were commercially available for use.
- tony2016 4y agoI don't fully agree with the slider the author is sugegsting. If my price range is 21 - 45, I don't want to fiddle with a double tick slider dragging it pixelwise to get to the exact numbers I want. Not everyone has perfect hand and mouse dexterity to move it a couple of pixels. Not some senior citizens. It's easier and faster for me to enter two numbers or just one number for the max. I don't need to enter a min number. Plus Amazon is already showing some popular ranges. I think
- moritonal 4y agoPosted to the one forum in collective agreement of this fact.
- jonnycomputer 4y agoWhat a beautiful, functional, perfect e-commerce site. After so much frustration looking for parts and tools at big box store web sites, this is fresh like a sea breeze. Sold, 100%. In fact, I was just browsing Home Depot for some tool hooks, but I think I'll buy them from this place instead.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoThe shocker is it has existed in this form for nearly 20 years
- throwaway93702 4y agoThe website design itself is very similar to how other ecommerce sites used to be 20 years ago, at least in my part of the world. Unfortunately we seem to have lost a lot of the simplicity over the years.
- parker_mountain 4y agoGreat website. Great company. Can't find what you're looking for? Website failing you? Don't worry, just click the email link at the top of the page and they WILL get back to you - even over a 20 cent part.
- ddhhyy 4y agoI've never emailed them but I have called them on a few occasions. Somehow they pick up before it even rings once. And it's a real person, not a phone tree. Pretty remarkable.
- s0rce 4y agoThey are really fast to get back to you and will tell you what stuff is which can be helpful in certain situations where the material or vendor might matter.
- exodust 4y ago> they WILL get back to you Okay but responding to customer enquiries isn't uncommon.
- parker_mountain 4y agoIt's a lot less common than you think, especially by email. In my spare time, I work on motorcycles, and I often have to source specific parts or - in rare cases - reach out to a local machine shop. I've given up on email, a phone call is often the only way to get a response. When you work in the tech industry, you get accustomed to everything being done by text, but the rest of the world isn't so convinced :)
- fake-name 4y agoMcMaster 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. Machining/industry runs on McMaster.
- thereisnospork 4y agoIndeed, even in rural parts of the country orders placed by 4-6pm still arrive next day[0]. This saves calendar days on projects; its often not till 4 or 5 that the full list of missing fittings/parts/tools comes together. [0]Sometimes you need to spring for air shipping if you are in the sticks.
- pGuitar 4y ago> Almost everything is next-day delivery, Could it be that you live next to one of their warehouses? On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if you aren't a Prime member.
- calvinmorrison 4y agoI'm ~12 miles from one, and they are as fast as amazon
- pGuitar 4y agoI would consider 12 miles to be right next to it from a shipping perspective... I.E., With USPS you can pretty much assume that you are going to get a letter next-day if it comes from your state
- paulryanrogers 4y ago> On the other hand, Amazon delays orders on purposes if you aren't a Prime member. Sounds like a conflict of interest if they literally start transit then delay at some point. Like maybe retailers shouldn't be able to own shipping
- alaskamiller 4y agoWhat a blast in the past, MMC was a client at the agency I was at and we pitched a lot of modernization updates.
- ellyagg 4y agoBut people love the site. What types of things did you pitch?
- jstrieb 4y agoIf you're not familiar with McMaster-Carr, this Hackaday article is a good introduction: https://hackaday.com/2017/09/13/noobs-guide-to-mcmaster-carr/ https://hackaday.com/2017/09/13/noobs-guide-to-mcmaster-carr... Besides the handy website, their many-thousand page phsyical catalog is great. We have a copy at work and it's easy to spend a long time flipping through, learning about all of the different things they have, and why they are useful. Here is Adam Savage talking about why their catalog is awesome: https://youtu.be/8kbu34dk92s https://youtu.be/8kbu34dk92s
- Rebelgecko 4y agoMy one complaint about their website (they don't give you an estimate of shipping costs in advance, so you just have to hope they're reasonable) has supposedly been fixed since the last time I ordered from them
- motoboi 4y agoNow 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?
- GavinMcG 4y agoOk, but if we're being honest, you can make that sort of claim about anything and it's equally as unhelpful. Things can have value even if you can't perfectly define a metric, and even if others might use different metrics. The author explained why they think it's great, so rather than waving your hands and denying that greatness could ever be defined, what about a constructive approach? Engage with the elements the author identified. Criticize specific ones, or suggest others. Say something you actually believe!
- motoboi 4y agoHi, thanks for your message. Maybe I didn't express myself very well. If you don't know what a great ecommerce website is, what is has, what it does, does reading a piece where someone says some site is a great e-commerce website influence your opinion? Does it shape your view? If so, how does previous literature about the subject influenced the writer? So, a great e-commerce website should be measured by it's form or by it's results? Why non functional and not great websites thrive? Would Jeff Bezos be fixated on those pixels because he believed that as long as amazon.com kept growing and selling, the site must therefore working great? Those are all sincere questions, not rhetorical or trolling.
- GavinMcG 4y agoI don't think you're trolling, but again, you're not actually saying anything here. That's why you need to make the disclaimer that those are sincere questions. I'm suggesting that you instead take positions, even if weakly held ones. In other words, I think that you're doing something covert when you say "[N]o one knows what is a great e-commerce website. Is one that sells a lot? ... [T]hat is very easy to use?" or ask "So, a great e-commerce website should be measured by it's form or by it's results?" What do you think? The article emphasized form and function. You seem to be proposing that results matter. Say that! Just cobbling together bits of what you're "asking" it seems like you might instead have written the following: "It seems to me that the article focuses on form: simple design, great search and filtering, and useful information like CAD files. But being 'the best e-commerce site' needs to include succeeding at e-commerce. Being very easy to use might help. But there seem to be non functional and not 'great' websites (by the article's definition) that thrive."
- jkhdigital 4y agoI normally browse HN incognito on my phone but had to go to my desktop and login to say this: I fucking love MMC and their website. I got into woodworking during the pandemic and eventually built a loft bed for my son. I needed some very specific sizes of furniture bolts in small quantities and Amazon just didn't have what I needed. McMaster-Carr to the rescue! I agree that they aren't the cheapest, but the quality is unimpeachable and the shipping is fast and reasonable even for small (i.e. retail) orders. I also love how everything in the catalog includes a brief but concise description of what it is used for. Also, at the risk of perpetuating (largely accurate) stereotypes about gender psychology, it's clear that the website is designed around the typical male shopper: I am shopping to fulfill a very specific need and I want to acquire the solution as quickly and efficiently as possible.
- Forge36 4y agoWhy is that a typical male experience? There's no reason a female would want anything different here
- jrockway 4y agoI think the stereotypical female experience is wanting to see the breadth of items available, and maybe "oh wouldn't this go nicely with that thing you bought?" I really don't think the stereotype is true, though. I LOVE browsing McMaster with no specific items in mind, and would not at be mad about "you just bought 1/4-20 18-8 stainless steel screws. here are nuts." All in all, I'd say to be careful with stereotypes. I'm sure women love the McMaster-Carr shopping experience.
- ISL 4y agoI have never noted a gender disparity among colleagues who use McMaster. Everyone likes it just fine.
- rfrey 4y agoYour gender stereotypes are made up, and ridiculous to boot.
- a-dub 4y agodigikey, jameco, mcmaster, ingram... most of these online catalog parts houses have excellently functional websites. but like, even back in the day distribution warehouses had excellent terminal based inventory search and ordering interfaces over packet switched networks. anyone remember datanet?
- a-dub 4y agoalso, the reason why they're all good is because they're not trying to sell you anything. they're for people who are at work, know what they need, know they have options on where to buy. therefore it's streamlined as much as possible to make life at work easy (which becomes their differentiator, along with easy billing terms and fast shipping), rather than market things to people who aren't even making decisions on what to buy...
- adhesive_wombat 4y agoRS, on the other hand, are so-so. The new JavaScript stuff looks shinier but still they don't surface out-of-stock status in the search which is infuriating when do many things are on long lead times.
- dwiel 4y agoI wish digikey was as good as McMaster. With digikey I often have to parse through a huge table with many pages to figure out what the difference is between a bunch of search results. On McMaster you can clearly see search results categorized in sub tables and densely arranged to make clear what the options are. Are there any electronics websites that actually organized like McMaster?
- johnwalkr 4y agoYou just need a digikey approved monitor to fit the table[1]. [1] https://displaysolutions.samsung.com/monitor/detail/1264/C49J89 https://displaysolutions.samsung.com/monitor/detail/1264/C49...
- bigyikes 4y agoI was thinking the same. Digikey, Mouser, etc. are great, but their websites don’t give me the same confidence that McMaster does. There’s always a fear in the back of my mind when browsing these electronics sites, wondering if the part I’m looking for slipped through the cracks of my filters. When filtering McMaster on the other hand, I have absolute confidence that I will find the part I’m looking for, assuming it is stocked. It’s really intuitive and robust. I’m sure much of this can be chalked up to the fact that McMaster has a much smaller and more specific catalog, but still. EVERY online retailer should take notes on how McMaster is able to create psychological safety when browsing. It’s a real peace of mind, as strange as that may sound.
- lvl102 4y agoIt’s overpriced. I rather order from Misumi or Accu.
- DaveExeter 4y agoMcMaster is only overpriced if you are spending your own money! :-) If you are spending your own money you might find other suppliers offer more value. McMaster-Carr Grainger ...and there are a few more.
- calvinmorrison 4y agoNo love for Rock Auto?
- radlad 4y agoRight! Rock Auto might be my favorite e-commerce site.
- 1970-01-01 4y agoRockauto is catering specifically to auto parts. It is far ahead of their competitors however.
- s0rce 4y agoRock Auto is great, definitely more consumer oriented and delivery is much slower, seems like professional mechanics rely on same day delivery. The biggest difference I see is that McMaster is curated, you want something there is usually one or maybe a couple options and it doesn't usually openly display the manufacturer. Rock Auto shows you all the options.
- desktopninja 4y agoWithout RockAuto is right up there with the submitted site.
- togaen 4y agoMcmaster is what the web is supposed to be like.
- nraynaud 4y agoI agree so much. It's what every single mail order company should have done. Freaking parametric search eaverywhere and uniform engraving style pictures so that your eye quickly catches the difference between the screw types.
- wildzzz 4y agoMcMaster is like the backend of an auto parts store. You tell the clerk what you need and they might ask if you want the cheap or premium version, then you pay and leave. You don't want to walk the aisles looking at stuff because you've got a dead alternator that needs to be replaced by Monday morning. Shopping at Amazon is like going to a massive department store. They've got everything but they lay out the store in a way that almost forces you to browse. You aren't in a rush because you are just looking at kitchen gadgets and might also be interested in buying a new pillow.
- cerved 4y agoMy mobile strongly disagrees
- nraynaud 4y agoI live in France, and I feel sad every time I have to buy a screw.
- ruined 4y agobecause the people ordering bar stock or whatever know what they need, and it's very specific, and they cannot be upsold if you want to make a sale all you can do is give them what they want most stores have to convince the user that they want something, and that could be anything, and it doesn't much matter what it is.
- sh34r 4y agoIn a better world, we’d have more companies like McMaster selling people what they need and providing a highly valued service, instead of using ads and weaponized psychology to convince them to buy some more junk they don’t need that’s going to end up in a landfill by December.
- iancmceachern 4y agoMechanical 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 they'll go through it, figure out what's what, and refund you for it. They make it so easy, you just have to do the engineering. Thank you McMaster-Carr.
- thechao 4y agoWe had piles of their yellow books laying around the house when I was a grad student. Definitely good toilet-book material.
- WhyCause 4y agoLucky. When I was in Engineering school, the Mechanical Engineering department had one catalog. We couldn't get any more - something about limited numbers printed (though, I'll confess I never tried to get my own). It was passed around among the students in Machine Design as if it were some sacred scroll.
- iancmceachern 4y agoTotally, it used to be a right of passage. You'd get your first job and (usually share) a copy of the machinerys handbook, and a yellow mcmaster book. I used to keep at least one at home long into the days where you don't need it anymore "just in case the internet goes down". It was those 2 books, the pemn 3 ring binder, and the ryerson catalog to know what mill sizes there were in what metals.
- TomSwirly 4y ago_Rite_ of passage. :-)
- 4y ago
- GuB-42 4y agoI often hear about McMaster from US sources and how great it is (though you pay for convenience), but are there equivalents in Europe? France in my case.
- soneil 4y agoFarnell is my nearest equivalent (in Ireland). Same "why doesn't everyone ship like this" experience, but more electrical than mechanical. I'm in the same boat as far as looking for a MMC equivalent (they refuse to ship here at all)
- StayTrue 4y agoI wish they wouldn't break the back button by inserting a redirect when you visit via a search engine.
- deutz_allis 4y agoMcMaster Carr is an amazing company. Its like if Uline was doing only hardware.
- talkingtab 4y agoAnother vote for McMaster-Carr. It is not like they are great, they just are not stupid or frustrating or annoying at all. I don't know of any other websites that meet that relatively simple standard. Perhaps part of why their website is so good is because they deliver the goods. They follow through. Ever need a 4x8 sheet of copper? It gets delivered to your front door. Sooner than you expect, and at a very fair price.
- aidenn0 4y agoYeah. It's kind of like how in chess, many learners study openings and gambits and obscure checkmates, when the low hanging fruit is just learning to spot and avoid blunders. MMC is mostly about not making the mistakes everybody else makes, which puts it near the top even before you consider what they do well.
- version_five 4y agoI think everyone knows what the "mistakes" are, it's just that its en vogue to "hate your customers" the way amazon and similar companies do, racing to the bottom to squeeze money out of them with dark patterns instead of just charging more for good service
- aidenn0 4y agoAmazon doesn't hate their customers nor do they love their customers. They clearly are indifferent to customers except to the point required by law, or as needed to keep the cash flowing in. It costs money to do the things that MMC does and Amazon prefers volume and revenue over the margins that MMC can command by providing quality service.
- ISL 4y agoMcMaster's pricing and structure also self-selects for the right kind of customer -- customers who are willing to pay a reasonable premium for quality, speed, and customer service.
- 4y ago
- dehrmann 4y agoOne thing I love them for is their curation. They find solid tools from companies the average retail buyer might not know.
- s0rce 4y agoYah, you generally don't have to worry, need a ratchet, need a metal shelf, need an air filter, it's going to do what it's supposed to.
- elromulous 4y agoAlso, the website has basically been unchanged for the ~20 years I've been ordering from there.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoI don't miss not having featured items, fake reviews, and suggestions
- elromulous 4y agoExactly. The website being unchanged is definitely a feature.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoI love McMaster, but also want to give a shout out to their competitor, grainger. Similarly excellent UI. One benefit that I take advantage of is free delivery to their local warehouse for in person pickup. I don't know why more companies don't serve the customer with this.
- bombcar 4y agoGrainger isn't directly a competitor as they focus on "everything" but they're amazing. You can pay them to open the local branch at 2 AM on a Sunday if you need a part and they have it in stock.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoWow, Thats crazy, but as it should be. Hope the employees get OT.
- bombcar 4y agoIIRC it’s the local manager(s) who usually has to roll out and they do get an after hours fee.
- mherdeg 4y agoGrainger was my N95 respirator buddy for a while. Fast shipping / great logistics too.
- bityard 4y agoI love having a Grainger within walking distance of my workplace because it means I can order some bearings (or whatever) and go pick them up on my lunch break. Grainger's prices are nothing amazing but sometimes the total purchase price ends up being less than all other options when you don't have to pay for shipping.
- syntaxing 4y agoMechE 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 book from McMaster. They’ll even host a seminar explaining why “good engineers design, great engineers integrate” (really only true for the industry and not consumer tech).
- jbay808 4y agoMisumi is awesome. It's basically Japan's answer to McMaster-carr. 10 years ago I would have said Misumi's website was better than MMC. Unfortunately Misumi has gotten a bit less usable over the past decade, while McMaster has improved. Misumi's paper catalogue is incredible though and I surprise myself to say I would rather browse it than either their or McMaster's website. Top quality configurable / customizable parts is certainly the way of the future, and it's amazing that Misumi has the whole process figured out. You can get a custom precision leadscrew of the length you want with the ends turned down to the diameter you want and the retaining ring grooves you want, and buy just one piece for a reasonable price. Any ordinary machine shop would reject the order unless you bought fifty or more.
- syntaxing 4y agoI think the most annoying thing about both sites is its weird ass names. Like it’s obvious that McMaster call certain things a certain way so that it’s less searchable elsewhere. Misumi takes this to a whole new level.
- Maarten88 4y ago> 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.
- giantg2 4y agoIt's pretty good. On at least two occasions I've had to look in multiple categories for stuff that I wanted. Sometimes they sell a bolt, but sometimes they don't carry the companion nut (when dealing with specific stuff like alloy or specialty breakaway nuts, etc).
- abotsis 4y agoI’ve always said about them: For mechanical engineers, by software engineers.
- petarb 4y agoI love their visuals / filters of the products. A lot of times I don’t know what a part is called on go on there to browse
- tims33 4y agoMcmaster.com is also insanely fast. The reaction to every click is so incredibly responsive. There is something so pleasing about it.
- cronix 4y agoIt's amazing how fast things can be with no crap ads and just pure content.
- ISL 4y agoMcMaster 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 job and it will arrive on time. That's McMaster's value proposition. It is often a very good one.
- xen2xen1 4y agoPlease tell me there's a story behind an "industrial tricycle?"
- eropple 4y agoIt's really a thing they sell. https://www.mcmaster.com/tricycles/ https://www.mcmaster.com/tricycles/ The why, though, no idea. Warehouse schlepping, probably? On the other hand, I take one look at this mostly-prefabricated building and I'm like "...I could use one of those." https://www.mcmaster.com/6704T998/ https://www.mcmaster.com/6704T998/
- haroldskavar 4y agoBoeing, other large industrial plants.
- avianlyric 4y agoLooks like they would be very useful on large industrial site with multiple buildings. Provide staff with bikes to get around, and cargo tricycles if they need to move small to medium loads.
- benhurmarcel 4y agoOr even inside a large industrial building like industrial assembly lines, etc.
- 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- inamberclad 4y agoMcMaster doesn't show you shipping and tax before you place your order! How is that legal? Everything else is fantastic though. I adore their catalogs and having the print version is a point of pride.
- hedora 4y agoMy homebrew keg was leaking CO2, and the brewing supply company only sells the same crappy (= non-silicone) o-rings that had just failed. They wanted something dumb like $25 for a replacement part. Enter McMaster-Carr. For significantly less money than fixing one bad o-ring, I have a pile of replacement sets for every seal in the system.
- amluto 4y agoIs silicone really a good material for this? In my experience, silicone picks up smells and is not so easy to clean. (The part I can’t find on McMaster or anywhere else is a high quality EPDM or FKM gasket for a garden hose.)
- fmajid 4y agoThe counterpoint to this is that a site like Amazon can still succeed to dominate the industry despite being a horrendous mess with nonfunctional search, a horrendous counterfeiting problem, and widespread review fraud. Does take the wind out of the sails of IA/UX purists somewhat.
- guywithahat 4y agoI feel like the part everyone is ignoring is that McMaster sells a very small breadth of things with incredible depth in its selection. The features people are raving about in this article and thread only make sense in the context of selling bolts for industrial use, and could never be implemented at a place like Amazon.
- williamscales 4y agoI 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 the frustrating thing for me, they are objectively very good at what they do, but in a completely unsustainable way.
- kortex 4y agoWhat'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 to deal with the excess.
- williamscales 4y agoMaybe 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.
- isatty 4y agoMcMaster is defintely amazing. Now I wish that Digikey and Mouser got their shit together when it comes to providing models and footprint files without me having to scour the internet for them, without having to login to various sites.
- chrsw 4y agoThat would be amazing. A dream come true. The Amp Hour podcast has touched on this a little bit. https://theamphour.com/577-product-lifecycle-management-with-michael-corr/ https://theamphour.com/577-product-lifecycle-management-with... I guess it's a pretty complicated problem. There are so many suppliers, standards, file formats and competing interests. But it does seem like it's a market ripe for disruption... somehow.
- londons_explore 4y agoAnd I bet the tech is all done by 3 guys and maybe a data entry/modelling team...
- jrockway 4y agoThis doesn't go into the actual mechanics of finalizing your order, which is incredibly well done. I've only actually ordered from McMaster 3 times and don't have a need for anything right now so I might be getting details wrong, but basically, the "items in your cart" page has a shipping address and payment method pre-filled, and you just hit "order" and that's it. What's in stock, what ships when, etc. is all clearly labeled in each line item. There are number entry boxes to adjust quantities. You can put in your own part numbers, of course, and the items in the shipment will be labeled with that (or at least a reference to the line item on your invoice). First time I bought from them, I was blown away how clean and easy it was. You hear "industrial supply" and think the ordering process is going to end with "ok, now call us for a quote", but it's smoother than Amazon. Well done. I also like their parametric search. If you type '1/4"-20 screw', the page goes to the overview of that screw type AND populates the "machine-readable" parameters on the left side with what you typed. It's wonderful. I also appreciate that their search term tokenizer understands that you're looking for a thread size ('1/4"-20') and doesn't strip the non-alphanumeric characters like most would. (Amazon has gotten better at this over the years. I wanted to say "look at those idiots, giving you any screw that has the number 1, 4, or 20 in the description", but they bring up the parameterization as well.) Finally, McMaster has a reputation for being pricey, but sometimes you just pay the same price that everyone pays for something. For example, say you want a set of Mitutoyo 4" digital calipers. On Amazon, which is rife with counterfeit knockoffs, you'll pay $136.94. On McMaster, you'll pay $129.19 (plus shipping, yeah I know). And it won't be counterfeit! As always, shop around, but they are not trying to screw you on price, or by subbing in counterfeit trash to make a few bucks. Truly a marvel of online shopping. I wish they sold everything.
- ryandrake 4y ago> I also like their parametric search. If you type '1/4"-20 screw', the page goes to the overview of that screw type AND populates the "machine-readable" parameters on the left side with what you typed. This is something I wish more e-commerce sites would grok. I go to Lowes and type in 1/2" 10-32 stainless bolt in the search box. Now I get a search result page, with filter parameters on the left side. Great. There's a checkbox that says "Stainless steel". Oh oh! What do I do now? Aren't the results already all stainless steel? I specified it in the goddamn search. If I select the checkbox, will I be filtering out things I want? Can I click the checkbox and remove "stainless" word from my search query and get more things I want? (hint: not usually). Why do I have different choices for screw thickness and thread pitch when I specified them, too? Come on, e-commerce developer-wizards, get your shit together! Same for you, Amazon! "64GB sd card" and then Amazon's filter lets me further drill down... by capacity. DUHH, I specified the capacity! How can Amazon operate for almost 30 years and still not have this one figured out?
- sbf501 4y agoMcMaster.com webdevs should do Digi-Key next. ...or Arrow, Mouser, or Farnell. Yes, I realize 10 other people said the same thing. But I feel so strongly about this that I don't think an upvote is sufficient!
- mastax 4y agoI disagree with one thing: I usually go to Mcmaster to browse. I often have a problem, and I know that it must be a relatively common problem with an elegant solution, but I'm not experienced enough in that area to know what the solution is. Browse through the catalogue for a while and sure enough, there's a widget that's specifically designed to solve your problem. The design of the website makes it really easy to do that. Everything is well curated, labelled, described, tagged, and hierarchical.
- nerdponx 4y agoThere's also something weird with the way they programmed the site itself, which prevents you from opening certain links in a separate browser tab. it's really annoying when I'm not sure exactly what I need and I want to read all 10 product descriptions or whatever. I end up having to copy and paste the product URL and work backwards, rather than going all through the parts-filtering flow 10 times over from the beginning. Otherwise the site is flawless in my opinion.
- modriano 4y agoDoes opening product detail pages in separate tabs not work for your workflow? Tangential note: you can open a part number's product detail page via this URL, https://www.mcmaster.com/<part_number>/ https://www.mcmaster.com/<part_number>/ And all part numbers will have the form: (4 or 5 integers)(1 capital letter A-Z)(1, 2, or 3 integers)
- myself248 4y agoThis drove me nuts for a while until I figured out the workaround: Expand down to a specific item. Click the item number to open the "last choice for quantity and stuff before adding to cart" dropdown. In this, rightclick "Item Detail" and open in new tab. Now in the new tab, head to the top right, "view catalog page", and you're back to the category. I agree that it's a weakness, though.
- exodust 4y ago> hierarchical On the point of hierarchy they are messing up their categories: mcmaster.com/raw-materials/ Hovering over the links in that category, you get links such as: mcmaster.com/raw-materials/foam But clicking "foam" takes you to: mcmaster.com/foam/ and there's no link back to raw-materials. This is a mistake. They've booted you out of the hierarchy and neglect to offer breadcrumbs or equivalent category navigation. Clicking "browse catalogue" menu fails to identify what category you're currently in. If I'm in mcmaster.com/fabricating/ and click "drills", why am I taken to a page called "hand drills"? The naming is a mess. Why am I seeing screwdrivers on that page? Pardon the pun, but if I drill down to the hammer drill product page, the URL is: mcmaster.com/29835A69/ What? That's ridiculous. The URL should be: mcmaster.com/fabricating/drills/dewalt-cordless-hammer-drills/[product-name/ID] Sorry to interrupt the "best website ever" theme!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- alden5 4y agomcmaster is great, i had ordered a small part from once and wanted a catalog, asked them what the order minimum was for a catalog and they emailed me back basically saying "a catalog is on its way" no asking if i actually wanted a catalog or what my address was, they just sent the 20lb book over
- macintux 4y agoWherever possible, I vastly prefer to buy online from a company who actually: A) Understands what they’re selling Really, there is no B, except for another feature that’s made it easier to buy from retail sites: Apple Pay. Apple Pay on websites has made it much easier to buy from companies where I won’t drop by often enough to warrant creating an account. One-click checkout without the Amazonian death by a thousand cuts.
- MasterYoda 4y agoHave people here any suggestion for mcmaster alternatives? I live in Europe.
- octoberfranklin 4y agoI really wish DigiKey would fire their web team and have McMaster's web team run their site. DigiKey's website has gone downhill so dramatically the past five years or so... it's astonishing. Random failures, login attempts just redirect back to their homepage, horizontal scrollables inside of vertical scrollables (?!?!!), and that new filtering scheme that has javascript that grays-out/disables options randomly in response to you moving your mouse the wrong way. WTF. Please DigiKey, learn from McMaster. Your website is junk, kill it with fire and start over. I love everything else about Digikey.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoI don’t always see it but sometimes on their home page there is an element that shows a few random products with their nice line drawings they do for the product. This just feels like it would be a really cool thing to put up on an e-reader as a kind of digital photo frame. Just random nice line art of McMaster products, hopefully just reusing the existing web element they display on their home page. If anyone works this up please let me know!
- btown 4y agoMcMaster-Carr is an incredible example of how an existing physical-product distributor with a vaunted historical operations department, when faced with moving into the e-commerce world, could choose one of two paths: - Build an online presence cheaply because you can rely on your historical offline operations to paper over any shortcomings in the online system. - Build an online presence with the same ethos, standards, creativity, and long-term continued investment with which you built your offline operations to be your competitive advantage in the first place. There aren't many legacy organizations that successfully digitized with that second path in mind, at least not at first - McMaster, B&H Photo, and Sweetwater come to mind as notable exceptions. It's a useful thought experiment, I think, even for those working on startups and green-field projects.
- myself248 4y agoFunny you should mention Sweetwater because they're also near the head of the table in my mental pantheon of e-commerce greats. Their website is honestly just above average. Page-load times are fair to middling, the pages are very busy, vendor-supplied copy takes up much of the item page, and categories are difficult, perhaps just an artifact of the industry they're in. But if you dig deep, there is a lot of detail beneath, and the related-items suggestions are usually at least relevant if not spot-on, which is more than I can say for many sites. But where they shine is the integration of humans into the process. Back in 2015, I thought I might pick up a digital piano/keyboard sort of thing. I wasn't having a great time making sense of the lingo, so I gave them a call, and within seconds (I think I might've pushed one button in an IVR system), I was talking to real person who knew everything there is to know about keyboards. We talked for probably ten minutes about what I wanted to do, my budget, the ergonomic and acoustic constraints of my workspace, etc. He explained some terms to help me understand how the offerings differed and how those would impact my playing, and ultimately steered me to one of the models that was already on my short-list. We also talked about companion software, but I elected not to take that step at the time. I went from hesitant to confident, and completed the purchase minutes later. The cool thing is, that confidence followed me through delivery, unpacking, setup, and my first plinking across the octaves -- I never felt alone like I was just gonna have to figure this out for myself, I _knew_ that this was the right instrument for my needs, and set out through basic finger exercises with the determination of one who's divinely inspired. Then something even cooler happened: A week after delivery, that same sales engineer emailed me, just checking in. To make sure I got everything set up and was comfortable with it, to see if I could use any further help. As it happens, I was fine, but if something along the line had derailed me, this absolutely would've made a difference in getting me back on track. An expert whose entire job is to make sure I have a good experience with their stuff. Now, I've had other e-commerce sites email me and follow up, sometimes with phone calls, but it's not the same. In some cases it feels like outright harassment (lookin' at you, Global Industrial). Often it's just a ploy for reviews or further business. With Sweetwater, it's different somehow. Yeah I'm sure their goal is to keep me as a customer so I'll spend more money with them in the future, sure, and I'm fine with that. But they don't lead with the money, they lead with the caring. And that makes all the difference in the world. With McMaster it's almost precisely the opposite, I've never spoken to a human there and I don't feel like I'm missing anything at all. They're like the supremely efficient robot that just produces the parts I need, immediately and without fail. There's no need for warm-fuzzies in this process, and they seem to understand that as well.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoAt some point several years ago, Amazon actually tried to compete with Mcmaster and others selling in this niche. They had a sub-site or something like that, I think it was called "Amazon Pro" and it focused on nothing but the sorts of parts and fittings that Mcmaster sells. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as Mcmaster, and it sank (AFAICT) without a trace.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoEDIT/UPDATE: apparently it was called Amazon Supply, later "upgrade" to Amazon Business, and now sunk without a trace, it seems.
- sitkack 4y agoAmazon bought a company "Small Parts" in 2005, they were a knock off of McMaster. This was probably to make sourcing fasteners easier for Blue Origin.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y agoI referenced Small Parts in another post. They weren't really a McMaster knockoff. They specialized in physically small items while McMaster carried everything industrial. I still have an 8"x10"x0.062" 6061 aluminum sheet I bought from Small Parts probably 15+ years ago, still in the plastic wrap. Don't even remember what I wanted it for :-)
- robk 4y agoAmazon pro failed badly due to mismatch of service levels. Raptorsupplies.com is a similar one that's purely non-US though.
- zagrebian 4y ago> Our website requires JavaScript. Please enable it in your browser. Should be the best e-commerce website render content without JavaScript?
- nlolks 4y agoNice find ! I also would like to share one. https://rockauto.com/ https://rockauto.com/ Really easy to use. I think it was built in-house. Enjoy.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- aunwick 4y agoI like rock auto website. It's just business no funny business just straight to the things you need.
- chrsw 4y agoPurchasing from McMaster is a very refreshing experience. Couldn't agree more. Loads quickly, looks the same on any browser I tried it on, I don't feel lost or like I'm wasting my time. However, it raises a quetion for me, how is it that they're able to stay in business and simultaneously respect their customers' time and sanity? If you look at the way other sites are designed, you'd just assume there's no way to make money with a frictionless, no frills, no distractions, no tricks storefront.
- njsubedi 4y agoYou answered your own question - they're able to stay in business because they respect their customers' time and sanity. People may not use McMaster because they land on the homepage and see a “Mega Deal” going on in a product they don’t need. People who visit the site are almost certainly going to buy something. Compare that to other e-commerce sites where people just visit to check specs, compare prices or just landed on the page from the search index.
- chrsw 4y agoI get it. Only certain customers get to have their dignity respected. It makes sense I guess, if you're a low value customer you're just not going to get the same treatmeant as valued customers.
- dieselgate 4y agoTheir search funnel/filtering works great and whenever I call during business hours I get a real person within 30 seconds. You get what you pay for.
- exabrial 4y agoYeah but it’s not node, wasm, sass, typescript, react bootstrap, rails, flask, ecma, flash enabled, spa web 3.0 with social media and crypto integration so it’s pretty much outdated and useless…. /s obviously, but it just points to the absolutely uselessness of ‘modern’ websites
- hpeinar 4y agoBut the whole point is that the UX of the website is perfect. It has nothing to do with what the webapage is built on. It could be built on PHP, it could be Java, it could be node, it could ASP.NET but if it's fast and with perfect UX like Mcmaster.com, what's the difference? It is definitely possible to build such a website using all the mentioned languages, they have happened to have chosen ASP.NET and have done it well, but I wouldn't blindly throw everything else under the bus with such a comment. And they aren't clear of "fancy web shenanigans" as well, they use socket.io and their website is unusable without Javascript so there's a lot of going on and this isn't your typical static website anyway. So I think your sarcasm is a bit out of place in this instance. And yes, I'm biased as I've been node.JS developer for a long time but I don't agree that the languages are the ones building shitty UX webpages that are slow... it's the developers that do that.
- schappim 4y ago>> /s obviously, but it just points to the absolutely uselessness of ‘modern’ websites So what is your cut off for "modern" here? Rails was released August 2004...
- PontifexMinimus 4y ago> Yeah but it’s not node, wasm, sass, typescript, react bootstrap, rails, flask, ecma, flash enabled, spa web 3.0 with social media and crypto integration so it’s pretty much outdated and useless…. Ah yes, the oh-look-a-shiny-thing development paradigm.
- calrain 4y agoExcept they don't ship overseas! There is a huge market they are missing out on
- williamscales 4y agoMcMaster has the most environmentally unsustainable shipping practices I've ever experienced. I once ordered a particular kind of 8 foot brass rod. They shipped it, not in a tube, but diagonally oriented in a gigantic rectangular box that was 99% empty. Completely absurd and I'll never order from them again.
- eight_ender 4y agoI’d like to add RockAuto as a peer to McMaster. It’s auto parts, and somehow uglier than McMaster, but damn if it isn’t the fastest no nonsense website I’ve seen for parts. I can drill down to a specific part for a specific car in seconds, and see pics of the product, part numbers, specs. It’s lovely.
- LesZedCB 4y agoholy shit, thank you!
- bityard 4y agoRockauto is one of my favorite things in the world. The site is a perfect case study in how to make a UX that's ugly as sin but has evolved to be a million times more usable than anything the "minimal sleek modern UX" crowd could ever come up with. You always roll the dice with aftermaket parts of course, but my experience has been that they usually don't sell utter crap like you'll find on Amazon and eBay. They make some effort to verify that the parts are not bottom-of-the-barrel because they don't want to deal with returns and after all, they are car people themselves. My favorite thing that I like to tell people that have not heard of RockAuto yet: I can buy a full of wiper blades for my two cars for about the same price as ONE mid-quality wiper blade at Walmart.
- roland35 4y agoI am lucky enough to live in the same town as a McMaster Carr warehouse. If you are close enough you can pick up your own order a few hours after it's in... I highly recommend checking it out if you can! So much automation... Conveyer belts... :)
- noasaservice 4y agoI'd also highly recommend Misumi for extrusions. I had a question about a bracket and its datasheet. The secretary put me on hold for 45s, and someone with a Japanese accent answered and said he was the lead engineer of that line(?!?!) Like within 1m total, I had the authoritative answer down to the .002 deg, and the head engineer answering me. So, I buy Misumi. I also find McMaster is also in that top list of "Just buy from them and not worry!"
- rezaca 4y agoThis website is really good
- FpUser 4y agoAgreed. Used it numerous times and am totally impressed with the quality of their front end and the service
- 14 4y agoLast 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.
- jamincan 4y agoIt seems they only do B2B in Canada. We use them all the time.
- CreepGin 4y agoJust curious, are images intentionally all grayscale? Or just a legacy thing.
- mrweasel 4y agoI didn't know about mcmaster.com, but I took a look at it, and the images was a surprise. The uniformity of the product images is nothing sort of amazing. Most websites don't care to much about illustrations, even though that's what many people use when buying. Taking your own photos, or doing illustrations is pretty expensive, but it really helps the customers pick the right products. The grayscale may be a way of insuring that customers aren't overly focused on the illustrations, and instead actually read the product descriptions.
- olivermarks 4y agoAside from their very good and intuitive site, McMaster's delivery speed is excellent. I use them for parts for my 'non profit' old car addiction, orders appear ridiculously fast in stout cardboard boxing. Perfect gold standard ecommerce imo
- elil17 4y agoI’ve posted this on HN before, but I’ll say it again. At my work, an idea is more likely to be prototyped if it can be done with parts available on McMaster. Sometimes I just browse the McMaster catalogue to come up with design ideas.
- rmm 4y agoThe inverse to this website being the Australian equivalent blackwoods[1] which is the worst website ever. As you search I’m pretty sure it downloads the entire database of items after each key stroke. No standardised tags on things like bolt sizes ( try quickly find M20 grade 8.8 galv bolts). just the worst! [1] https://www.blackwoods.com.au/ https://www.blackwoods.com.au/
- winrid 4y agoI once got to work with a technical PM from McMasterCarr. Hands down best PM I ever worked with.
- RicoElectrico 4y agoI was very confused when Ben Krasnow pronounced McMaster with a "mick" at the beginning. For 10+ years of my English education nobody bothered to explain that Mc is "mack", but sometimes it's pronounced "mick". I was aware something is going on when Tyler McVicker introduced himself with "mick". English teachers usually have a typical repertoire of their pet details like schwa and so on, but seems there's a blind spot here.
- NavinF 4y agoHmm isn't McMaster pronounced just like McDonald's?
- RicoElectrico 4y agoApparently this varies. Adam Savage does not pronounce it with "mick".
- bityard 4y agoI expect pronunciation largely boils down to regional and personal preferences. The "Mac" prefix means "son of" and "Mc" is an abbreviation of that. The "a" is schwa and where I grew up, is pronounced with a short I, as "mick". But I have heard others pronounce it "mack". The McDonalds ads on TV and radio seem to try to split the difference by pronouncing it "meck". It's also possible that some people go out of their way to say "mack" in an attempt to acknowledge and avoid the "mick" slur that was sometimes used in England and in the US against Irish and Scottish immigrants.
- fcjr 4y agoMy absolute favorite part about McMaster-Carr as a 3d printing enthusiast is the 3d models. Countless side projects have been saved with the ability to print a weirdly specific m<x> nut/bolt to validate a build before purchasing them in bulk.
- dghlsakjg 4y agoRock auto also gets a vote for great sites. It is clear that it is a site designed for people that just need to order parts for cars. I’ve never spent more than 45 seconds to find the exact part I’m looking for. Incredible
- jsolson 4y agoAs someone who software engineers and builds physical shit from time to time, yes, but money helps making this true.
- st3ve445678 4y agoGreat site. A few others that I use come to mind like boltdepot.com, uline.com, allstatesign.com
- 6Az4Mj4D 4y agoI wonder what platform / framework / language was used to make this website?
- stefcoetzee 4y agoSeems to be React with .NET
- winrid 4y agoIIRC their dev team is in Chicago. .NET is common there.
- inezk 4y agoTotally agree - yet they still don't have countersunk M7 that I needed so badly (apparently I managed to get it from Volvo)
- bdowling 4y ago> Your Browser Is No Longer Supported > To view this website and enjoy a better online experience, update your browser for free. Yes, I'm on an old laptop, but it works with most sites. No way to even let the current browser try. Kind of a fail, if you ask me. Edit: mcmaster.com works fine. bedelstein.com is the problem. It's just a blog. It should render well enough, even with an old browser.
- paxys 4y agoTheir description of the site and its usefulness is probably correct, but I think people are taking the wrong message from it. Mcmaster.com isn’t good because of its UX. The service would be exactly as useful had it looked exactly like Amazon.com. Its UX is simply secondary to its inventory and logistics. Simply put - to build a successful business focus on the entire business and not just the website. People can get over an unintuitive UI and slow search. They cannot get over the fact that you don’t carry what they want.
- mcovalt 4y agoThe article specifically compares McMaster-Carr’s website to Amazon.com to demonstrate a superior UX.
- sorcercode 4y agoMark Rober - the popular YouTuber (ex NASA/Apple engineer) also recommends this site in his Studio course. https://studio.com/mark-rober-engineering https://studio.com/mark-rober-engineering
- bluSCALE4 4y agoGrainger tried copying them a few years back. Don't think that sister site caught on.
- MarkMarine 4y agoPart of McMaster is the execution. You order 5 different things, as you realize you need them during a build. They show up tomorrow in one box. There is one shipping charge. Amazon doesn’t even come close. I tip my hat to them, the most reliable execution I’ve seen from any supplier, always on time, always on target.
- informal007 4y agoIt's so clean like Apple Store but more cheap.
- oliwarner 4y agoMcMaster is the golden example of only trying to sell people what they need. No upselling, no "popularity" filtering, no cheap imports that under-perform. You don't reviews to select between items because if you know what you need, you just buy that. Of course this requires some expertise. You need to know what you need. And that's where the value of a physical trade shop comes in, where you can go, talk, even show the problem to somebody who might have seen your problem before.
- glintik 4y agoBest e-commerce site? Ok, trying to search for “bolts filips”. Showes me ALL products.
- hoseja 4y agoWhen you target the general population, it's sadly more profitable to design for exploitable, manipulateable, lowest common denominator. You can only have nice things if your consumer base isn't generally morons and you are therefore somewhat protected from predation by unscrupulous companies.
- gnrlst 4y agoThe world would be a slightly better place if everyone had some form of engineering background. Not necessarily software nor mechanical, just an inkling of making things more efficient, more logical, and more usable.
- fbn79 4y agoThe site is using Yahoo User Interface, discontinued since 2014. As I always suspected stick to old tech is not always bad.
- throwaway93702 4y agoI used the YUI framework back in the days for "backoffice" / "admin" pages. It was one of the most productive frameworks. It had a lot of really good abstractions around dom manipulations, data sources and events. It also had an amazing set of components including an awesome charts library. The data table was state of the art at the time, and could probably beat many of the react tables that are made today. From my point of view it was so much better than most of the alternatives, but it had the negative stigma of a Yahoo ownership.
- agys 4y agoThe illustrations/photos/images are extremely well done. This sort of consistency and “flattening” of the stile is not trivial at all (the author mentioned the absence of color, but the point of view and shading is also consistent).
- nixass 4y agoIt feels like this website has been posted around here for hundred times already
- oytis 4y agoLiving in Germany I'm really disappointed there is nothing like Mcmaster here. Misumi is kind of close, but is online-only and doesn't work with private customers.
- Dave3of5 4y agoEek I'm going to go against the grain here a little. That site is useful when you already know what you are looking for. For someone who's just browsing for something interesting to buy it's terrible. Obviously it's been made for exactly that purpose and does it well but for general e-commerce it's bad. The retailers are looking to send you to an area of their website with "stuff" you are interested in. For example you like toys because you're a parent who's buying your kids stuff for x-mas. The site wants to know that sort of thing and send you to the toys for x-mas section. What Mcmaster.com looks like to me is an old fashioned mail order company that's converted their old mail order catalogue straight to a website, perfection. Also note with Bezos tinkering with every pixel on the website is very old news, this doesn't happen anymore. P.S. I'll eat the downvotes.
- blitzar 4y agoBezos is too busy tinkering with the sorts of things that wouldnt go anywhere near him when he wasnt a billionaire to bother with a website
- MoSattler 4y agoMaybe check out https://www.govolition.com https://www.govolition.com
- muspimerol 4y agoYeah the title is clickbait. McMaster is regularly praised in engineering forums, which is great. Clearly they nailed the UX for their users. There are some good lessons to learn from it, but it's not some sort of golden standard for e-commerce as a whole. The main praise is usually search/filter, but that really comes down to this quote from the article: > McMaster is able to provide such intuitive searching and filtering because everything that they sell is highly legible – it's all defined by quantitative specs. Most products don't lend themselves so well to filtering.
- myself248 4y agoAn awful lot of products _would_ lend themselves to filtering, but the folks putting the sites together don't bother coming up with good parameters, or when they do, they don't populate them on all the relevant products. This vexes me constantly on HomeDepot.com, for instance. I was looking for a set of sockets, either 1/4" or 3/8" drive, metric 6-point, deep, impact. I was shopping for sockets at the Depot because I was already buying some other things, and I honestly like Milwaukee's offerings in this space, so let's take a look. Search for "metric deep socket", so far so good. Gets me into the category so parametric filters appear. Filter by "6-point" and all the sets disappear -- that parameter only applies to sockets sold individually, despite most sets consisting exclusively of 6-point or 12-point, rarely a mix, and they even indicate this in their item titles. The data is there, but you can't filter by it, because the site sucks. Just the first example to mind because it happened two days ago.
- SilverBirch 4y agoThis is a great example of doing one niche incredibly well. Another example I've seen of doing this well is motorcycle parts[1]. You select your motorcycle, it presents you with a set of schematics of the bike split by function - for example you pick the Cam chain tensioner. You pick the schematic for the part you want and it'll show you the schematic with every part numbered, and a numbered list beside it with the name of the part, the part number, the price and a "buy" button. So simple, works absolutely perfectly. [1]:https://www.hondaparts-direct.com/oempartfinder?aribrand=HOM&arian=motorcycle#/Honda_Powersports/CB500XAAC_(20)_MOTORCYCLE%2c_THA%2c_VIN%23_MLHPC645-L5100001_TO_MLHPC645-L5199999/CAM_CHAIN%40TENSIONER/4bd75a51-6e49-4569-8368-1fa248471acb/22a5739c-665e-4b37-b8fa-91c29a91cc99/y https://www.hondaparts-direct.com/oempartfinder?aribrand=HOM...
- keepquestioning 4y agoWould a company like Apple use McMaster
- s_severus 4y agoSmall note on the part about the price range UI controls: the author criticizes Amazon for using min, max number inputs rather than a slider control. 2 arguments against a slider: 1. Potentially it is much harder to make an accessible slider control. 2. Sliders break down when you have a distribution skewed away from normal. For instance, if 90% of results are in the range $0-$50, but then a few results are over $1000, how do you calibrate the slider? A naïve approach would render it almost unusable if you want to limit to products between $20 - $30. Otherwise you need some sort of logarithmic scale. I've not seen examples of this being done well.
- ruiramos 4y agoAgree with you here. I thought the article made some good points but I've also been bitten by the "naive" [mix, max] slider you describe - I did yearn for some good old text boxes back then!
- jawadch93 4y ago[dead]
- leobg 4y agoThat Amazon sucks at finding what you‘re looking for is perhaps not a bug, but a feature. Many here on HN have the engineer‘s mindset where shopping for an item is just solving a problem. But perhaps, for most people, online shopping is something different altogether. Perhaps the a sizable majority of people actually enjoy „hunting“ for a good deal. They, perhaps, enjoy getting „inspirations“ along the way. So Amazon, through testing, might find that making search very fuzzy and even customer reviews not very reliable to actually boost sales. In an ideal world, I‘d like Amazon to filter fake reviews, weigh the rating of products with hundreds of reviews higher than those with just a handful of reviews, and give me filters to exclude words, search by strings, block particular brands, sort not only by price but by price per unit, and so on. I used to think that Amazon was just lazy in not implementing these things. But I now suspect that the real reason is that they‘ve found that most people do not want to shop like that. For them, shopping perhaps is much less about mere „procurement“ than about gamification, the thrill of the hunt, and entertainment.
- LaputanMachine 4y agoI believe it's not about customer enjoyment, it's about profits. If a customer spends more time on the website, they might buy more stuff they don't even need. It's the same reason why you have to waltz to the back of every supermarket to buy essential items, walk back to the front, and look at individually packaged, overpriced snacks for several minutes while waiting in line at the register.
- _orcaman_ 4y agoDamn, that site is good
- benj111 4y agoCan someone at Screwfix read this please? There are times I can't find the part even when it's something I know you must sell. And I don't need to wait ages for jazzy pictures of screws to show up. It's a screw.
- heisnotanalien 4y agoStick to the basics, make it fast, ignore what the PM has to say, and avoid feature-bloat.
- loh 4y agoIt sort of reminds me of a video game UI for an RPG or something. Game UIs usually do a great job of organizing and simplifying complex hierarchical information and making it quick and intuitive to find what you need. A lot of the web tech I've built over the years has been inspired by well designed games.
- warent 4y agoYes completely agree. I was going to post the same thing and did a quick CTRL+F to see if anyone else felt similarly. I don't even play video games that often but this immediately made me think "Wow this really feels like a video game somehow"
- red_admiral 4y agoThe first thing I tried is, does middle-click open a new tab properly? Turns out it does, which already puts this site above average compared to a lot of online shops I use, simply for not breaking a standard browser feature! Ways I've seen it done wrong include middle-click/Control+click not working at all, because the links are some kind of onclick="javascript:" monstrosity, or the link working but some script in the background also redirecting the page on the tab I originally clicked on. (I can understand some kind of "flow control" during the checkout process to stop you from double-submitting the "place order" request. But not when I'm browsing the products, and sometimes want two tabs open side by side to compare things.)
- wscott 4y agoI build my own HVAC system for a guest house last summer and I got to be really impressed with supplyhouse.com. You can find all the part you need very easily and they shipped quickly. Some of these specialized store websites are WAY nicer than trying to find something on Amazon on Ebay.
- bartread 4y agoAllow me to correct: "Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used" that only those of you in the US, or possibly North America, will be able to use in any practical sense, which is I'd guess at most about 60-70% of HN's readership. I got pretty excited looking at this site because I'm refurbishing my home at the moment, and doing most of the work myself, so new suppliers of materials and tools always catch my eye. I'm not sure Screwfix et al really cut it next to this but then, of course, I noticed all the prices are in dollars and all the measurements are of the somewhat ironically named imperial variety. Is there anything like this for the UK market? I've noticed that CPC and their various subsidiaries (Farnell, for example) can be pretty good, depending on what you need. But you seem to need a set that includes Screwfix, Toolstation, CPC, Farnell, RS, and a bunch of tool vendors (like SGS and Toolden) to really cover it off. I ended up buying specialist drillbits from a niche supplier that I can't even remember the name of now.
- jmartin2683 4y agoMcMaster is the best. I use them for everything, mostly because of the models and extra info noted in the article.
- ckemere 4y agoI have fond memories of the Small parts catalog (and e-commerce site). Amazon bought them and then destroyed the ability to search. I've since discovered that the tubing and small screw portion of their company lives on as componentsupply.com.
- toddmorey 4y ago"People visit McMaster-Carr with high intent to buy a specific part, that's it." Mcmaster is great, but it's important to point out there's no brand or product selection decisions. You pick your criteria and get exactly one option. It lends itself to a very different experience. How would this work for cars or couches or headphones?
- klausjensen 4y agoWouldn't that be exactly the same, just with more filters? When I am on Amazon, trying to find something, I always feel like I have to fight the site, rather than being helped by it. Paid ads, very poor categorization/property-search, deceptive UX, fake reviews, "amazon picks" etc etc etc. And when I find the right product, I might receive a fake. I think what people enjoy and celebrate about McMaster-Carr is that it is exactly the opposite of that.
- systems_glitch 4y agoYou never have to worry about it being junk, though. When I order fasteners, metal parts to be machined/used in fabrication, or just misc. supplies from McMaster-Carr, I know whatever supplier they are using will be high quality and the part won't be a counterfeit. It also seems that they tend to stick with US manufacturers if possible.
- toddmorey 4y agoI agree. Amazon over-indexed on being the world's biggest store and chose to do zero curation. I'm thinking they thought reviews would solve for bringing quality to the top before learning how badly gamed they'd become. Now about half of what I get on Amazon has to go right back. So much junk.
- hwbehrens 4y ago> there's no brand or product selection decisions > How would this work for cars or couches or headphones? This would be great for many things! I'm sure there are plenty of people who just want a good quality, reasonably priced -whatever- and would be fine with this model. Actually, that seems like it's basically just the business model for Kirkland. If there was a retailer who just sold one carefully-chosen thing in each category, I think they'd do pretty well. They wouldn't be able to capitalize on market segmentation, fashion trends, etc. which would hurt their profitability, but they'd also benefit from being the "default" choice for many people.
- systems_glitch 4y agoULINE is another B2B with a great site. Basically McMaster-Carr for the shipping department.
- jawadch93 4y ago[dead]
- DrewADesign 4y agoFor all the shade interface designers get around here, folks sure do talk a lot about great interface design!
- Dr_ReD 4y agoMcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used and they listen too. Look how big is the search bar now! :))
- focusedone 4y agoAlso: Privacy Badger - No Trackers Blocked This is amazing!
- apocalyptic0n3 4y agoI used to work for an auto supplier and saw the McMaster site and catalog nearly every day. The thing that was always fascinating about their site was they basically translated their Catalog 1:1 to the web and added some interactivity to it. It's similar to what IKEA did with the early versions of its website. As a result, McMaster's site is hyper-focused on presenting information in the densest and cleanest way possible because it's using techniques from print. It's not trying to upsell or advertise or offer support or this or that. It's pretty much the gold standard catalog-to-site port and one of the best ecommerce experiences out there. That said, the way they've done things won't work for many ecommerce platforms. They're established, they have a massive catalog of highly-customizable parts, they sell in bulk, and they're (mostly) B2B. Those factors really lend themselves well to a simple, catalog-like experience. A new name selling to customers that only has 15 products isn't likely to benefit as much, although there are still things they could likely learn.
- the_cat_kittles 4y agobolt depot is another very good, albeit simpler site in a similar vein
- tristor 4y agoI love McMaster-Carr. It’s one of the only places online to reliably get quality titanium fasteners for racing applications. Between all my hobbies I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars with them.
- AlwaysRock 4y agoI know someone who worked there for several years. From what I heard they take very good care of their employees as well and because of that tend to have folks that stick around for ~5 years on average. Unheard of in tech.
- stemlord 4y ago>It's not the most visually stunning site, but that doesn't matter here - McMaster has chosen function over form. Why do we tend to pretend this kind of thing isn't beautiful. Most people would agree it is. Why do we tend to pretend function and form are two different things. Even as a colloquialism it's misleading. No need to throw visual design under the bus, what you enjoy about this site is the product of such design done thoughtfully.
- glitchinc 4y agoThe only downside to their site is that it does not render correctly on mobile. But they now have an app (at least on iOS) that provides a UI and workflow akin to their website.
- achr2 4y agoTheir site is amazing. I often use it as a research tool to find out what might be available to meet a design idea.
- jdc0589 4y agoMcMaster is the greatest retail website to ever exist, albeit in a bit of a niche. I used to absolutely LOATHE tracking down a specific bolt, nut, fitting, coupler, etc... but McMaster completely changed that. If I need something specific, I'm going to McMaster first every single time, and I'm almost always ordering from them. If it's something really expensive I might cross shop elsewhere, but McMaster is easily the most pleasant platform out there, and I like knowing I can just immediately ship stuff back if it doesn't work for me (no authorizations, just return it). You pay a little premium, but it beats driving to 50 different local stores to find out no one has what you need, or ordering from another online retailer and not really being confident when your order will show up. I'm a hobby guy when it comes to this stuff, but if I owned a business I'd be drinking the kool-aid even more. Time is money, and McMaster is reliable and fast as hell.
- ShuffleBoard 4y agoOMG 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 types.
- jamincan 4y agoGo to the product detail and they show precise measurements and often CAD models of the part.
- ShuffleBoard 4y agoIOW the "principle of least surprise" is not even expected to be observed in the ME world. We're talking about a product category -- machine screws -- that has been full standardized for over 100 years. And when McMaster still manages to crap the bed, the rebuttal is "why didn't you load up the CAD model and verify things yourself?"
- marstall 4y agoomg the instananeous page load times. surprised this wasn't mentioned. would love to read a piece on how they engineer the site to be so fast.
- mr-pink 4y agoyeah it's awesome. i wish video streaming sites had a similar interface. would be so easy to find something to watch.
- InitialLastName 4y agoMy only complaint about McMaster is that their search integration is a bit wonky: - However they've managed SEO, searches for their part numbers on normal search engines never have the part page as a result - Searching for part numbers on their page only takes you to the series page for that part number, rather than the "Product Details" page for the part.
- mimac 4y agoAnyone has something comparable in the EU?
- moeymo1 4y agoI interviewed there and got a job many years ago. They are very smart. And weird. During my final round with the CTO I was waiting for him in his office on a couch. The couch was in a living room-like area of the office. After a few minutes of waiting I turned around. The CTO was sitting there staring at me; I've no idea for how lone. I stared back, then said "hi, I'm moeymo1. Are you Mr. X?" We started the interview. They are conservative because the owners "like getting their dividend check and eating caviar" I was told. Apparently they tried to expand internationally in the 1970s when an employee wanted to move home and start a warehouse there. It turns out "home" was Iran, and the warehouse and its contents were seized after the revolution. That apparently put them off international expansion for a very long time. They can pay big bonuses like financial firms. I didn't take the offer because they were too odd. Years later I ran into a woman that used to work there. Apparently they are super, um, not nice to women, at the exec level. She left for Grainger.