Grainger vs Fastenal

[fram_james]

Hi All,

How would you rate the two suppliers against each other. In terms of product line, availabilty, price, and of course customer service?

Thank you for your responses!

Jms

[buffalobill]

grainger always reliable for us. also look at

[RBM]

I've been buying from Grainger for over 20 years. Any issues I've ever had were resolved immediately with no hassles

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Never used Fasenal.

Grainger has bee very reliable and is a 30 minute ride if I want to pickup. Usually have what I need in stock, maybe twice a year something is an extra day.

McMaster Carr has a larger selection and about a 99.999999999% reliability of having stock. I can only thing of one instance in 20 years that something took an extra day because if came from a distant warehouse.

[HeatMan]

Home Depot? I think not for me...

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Compared to a Grainger or McMaster, they have nothing. Where are the motors, gear drives, controls, specialty fasteners, etc.

[fram_james]

Excellent responses.

Thank you for your replies. The OP was for prospecting purposes more than anything. I have many years of experience inside with one, but the other was a prospect. Of course, taking care of customers is everyones number one priority. WWG lacks technical knowledge in house and is more of a "white collar" work force, where as the others tend to be a little more blue collar and arent afraid to get their hands dirty and tend to possibly have "hands on knowledge" . OF course the WWG rep can get you through to the tech support, which are extremely knowledgeable people if you can get on the same page as them. Bit if you call and don't know that 5 digit part number, it's like flipping off a light switch with the rep on the phone or at the counter, they know less about that catalog then you do. Fastenal is gaining ground and market share at an astounding rate, double digit growth this YTD. Grainger is pretty flat. Being an insider I can give you guys a little heads up. Everyone is after the contractor market. WWG I believe only has 5%, not sure who has the rest, most likely is HD or Lowes..

McMaster is an awsome outfit and yes it its true that 99.9% of what is in that 5,000 page catalog is available to ship same day. And they hae excellent service to boot.

Get ready to pay more at WWG as they have changed their pricing structure. You might be a less than $5K customer accustomed to getting an approx 10% discount on most of your products, thats gone and if you havent noticed it yet, you will. I don't remember exactly what it is, but it is designed to get you to consolidate your purchases under one supplier. Thats great, the downside is that to get that same discount you will need to spend almost $15-20K per year, and there are bigger discounts beyond that, if you can spend $100K, but that may not be feasable, for most anyways.... The $5-10K threshold is now getting between 0 and 5%.

One thing WWG does have going is a good contractor program. For qualified contractors, IOW, thats the occupation you claim on your tax form, you can get all kinds of great discounts. I think, and it may have changed, but it was 30% off of filters and HVAC, 15% off of motors and transmission, and 5% off of electrical, again to qualified contractors. Check it out at

for more info. You might be required to give a fecal sample to prove you are a business or a contractor, LOL.

BTW. I don't work for WWG or Fastenal (these days, LOL). From the post you should be able to figure where I came from. From what I hear, nice place for customers, bad place for employees, (thats why if you have done business there for years you may have seen alot of new faces) LOL.