This was 10 years ago now, so sort of like Amazon Prime before it became ubiquitous, but for materials and tools. However McMaster was and remains much better organized and much better spec-ed.
What's interesting is that considering the existing logistics, none of these guys though of expanding into other ecommerce earlier. One of them could have been Amazon...
I would like to know if a McMaster-Carr, Grainger, et al had fallen into the same traps Amazon has when it comes to supply chain and if eventually Amazon will be shaped into a similar company & business model.
Amazon knows that retail margins are tiny, a few percent at best, and that is not what they are interested in. It takes a lot of labor to provide high quality vetting and constant vigilance over suppliers. What they are interested in is high margins, which comes from being a platform.
I don't think McMaster Carr or Grainger ever had any intention of becoming platforms for resellers so they could take a top line cut of sales and outsource quality control.
If anything, I think Amazon is probably trying to reduce their shipped and sold by Amazon.com retail operations and focus on the high margin web services. Why compete with Walmart/Target/Best Buy/Home Depot/Lowes for <5% profit margin with huge liabilities when you can make 20%+ easy on super scalable web services?