Yeah. 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.
I 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
Amazon 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.
McMaster'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.
+1 for "self-selects" for the right kind of customer. Self-selecting is interesting. Mine was a need, not a hobby, it was not a luxury. And like the original post pointed out, there was no need to convince me to buy. So I wonder if there needs to be another Amazon, one that it focused on those customers who "need" something?
Also, my own experience was that I did not pay a "premium". I really did need 1/2 sheets of copper on a regular basis. I could get small pieces at a premium. I could get larger sheets by driving for a hour or ... I could pay about the same total cost or less and get them delivered to my door... This was not limited to a few items. I needed plastic bags, about quart size. Again I got just functional bags - not shoddy at all - at a very reasonable price. The same things at amazon would have been a) not functional or b) impossible to find among all the shoddiness.
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.