McMaster Carr shuns international customers

[rwtalbot]

After going through the rather large catalogue and selecting some odd bits and pieces I find difficult to get in Australia, I placed my order and recieve the following email some hours later.

I am more than a bit peeved as I spent a bunch of time on their site and they happily accepted my order online. They are also the first US vendor to refuse to ship to Australia in 4 years of aircraft building!

Perhaps by sharing this I will save some other International customers the trouble. For the locals, is there another US company that I could purchase odd bits of hardware from?

Thanks
Richard
RV-7a - Finishing... one day.


From: McMaster-Carr Sales [mailto:chi.sales@mcmaster.com]
Sent: Thursday, 17 April 2008 7:35 PM
To: richard
Subject: McMaster-Carr purchase order RICHARD

Richard,

Due to the ever-increasing complexity of U.S. Export regulations, McMaster-Carr has decided to only accept orders from a few, long-established customers of ours overseas. We cannot accept your order, and regret any inconvenience this causes you.

Regards,
Lynda

[AlexPeterson]

That is too bad, as McMaster is about the best company I've ever dealt with here in the US. There on-line ordering is as easy as it gets. Maybe a division of VAF could get into the re-shipping business...

[ptrotter]

You might try MSC (www.mscdirect.com). They have pretty much the same stuff as McMaster. I don't know their policy on internatinal shipping. I use both MCMaster and MSC with equal success.

[AllanC]

If its stuff that you can only seem to get from Mc-Mc, then if you know someone in the US, have it shipped to them, and have them forward it to you in Oz.

[AntiGravity]

I found exactly the same thing when I tried a year or so ago. It is *such* a lame excuse too and like you, I have found they are the only company so far to refuse to ship to me in NZ.

[DaX]

I'd be willing to re-ship for you if you need. You'll just have to pay shipping twice, which sucks.