McMaster-Carr
| Private | |
| Industry | Industrial supply |
| Founded | 1901 |
| Headquarters | Elmhurst, Illinois |
| Website | www |
McMaster-Carr Supply Company is a private, family-owned supplier to industrial and commercial facilities worldwide, specializing in next day delivery of Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) materials and supplies. McMaster maintains over 555,000 products in a catalog offering a variety of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and utility hardware not usually located from a single source.
The company is based in Elmhurst, Illinois and has distribution branches in Robbinsville, New Jersey; Santa Fe Springs, California; Atlanta, Georgia and Aurora, Ohio.
McMaster-Carr annually releases a large, yellow catalog containing the bulk of its product selection. The print edition of the catalog is noted for its limited distribution, sent only to established customers.
McMaster-Carr's website has been used as a positive example of link-rich design and good user interface. Even though the site allows access to over 555,000 products, it is easy to penetrate directly to the desired categories and compare alternatives. The website also includes useful design tips and explanations of material properties as well as a categorical parametric search engine. Their customer service reps typically answer first ring and already have customer information and frequently ordered items up on a computer, making the time spend ordering thousands of small and obscure hardware items of various thread pitches and requires metal alloys effortless. Seamless conferencing occurs between order taker, customer and technical dept, when necessary if questions arise.
The site ranked third in a 2002 study performed at Stanford University about trust and credibility, just behind Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The author concluded "The surprise comes in seeing who landed in third place: McMaster-Carr—a relative unknown entity compared to others who ranked high in this category. The McMaster-Carr site has relied on its own merits—not on a public relations campaign or a big reputation—in conveying high levels of credibility."
The McMaster app was released in May 2013 for the iPad and March 2014 for Android tablets.
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