business math.. or make it up on volume

I dislike it when the quantity price breaks don't kick in until you get past lifetime supplies.

I recently needed to buy some screws...  To get a good price, i'd have to buy 10,000 screws. and even that varied but I could get 10k for $70.00  I couldn't find anybody selling 1k quantities and best 100pc price was $2/100  . Since I only needed about 1k I paid the $20 instead of having several thousand left over.

That $2 price was only from one vendor, most charge $5/100... 

[satire] Maybe we need to do a group buy on screws.  [/satire]...  8)

JR

I think the main issue is that every vendor has fixed internal costs per order.

Theres just no getting away from that.

JohnRoberts said:

I recently needed to buy some screws...  To get a good price, i'd have to buy 10,000 screws. a

Click to expand...

When is it not like that? I buy most of my hardware at McMaster-Carr. Decent price, huge selection, almost always in stock, great customer service. There is a good hardware store for fasteners on the other side of Brooklyn. I could go buy a few but I'd rather give UPS my money than spend two hours to save $10.

The hardware I use to pack up lacquers I buy by the 10k because i go through  ton of them. As a matter of fact I need to order fender washers. I get them from Global Supply.

Gold said:

JohnRoberts said:

I recently needed to buy some screws...  To get a good price, i'd have to buy 10,000 screws. a

Click to expand...

When is it not like that? I buy most of my hardware at McMaster-Carr. Decent price, huge selection, almost always in stock, great customer service. There is a good hardware store for fasteners on the other side of Brooklyn. I could go buy a few but I'd rather give UPS my money than spend two hours to save $10.

The hardware I use to pack up lacquers I buy by the 10k because i go through  ton of them. As a matter of fact I need to order fender washers. I get them from Global Supply.

Click to expand...

Screws just seemed a little out of whack to me... McMaster Carr doesn't sell the specific screw I want in the finish I want (black oxide), while they are really good for general purpose stuff...

I still have thousands of other screws laying around from bulk buys that I will never use.

JR

PS another reason for only accepting 10k volume orders it tends to separate the punters from the professionals....  I can understand that motivation.

JohnRoberts said:

Screws just seemed a little out of whack to me...

Click to expand...

Try finding fasteners for record presses or letter presses or other stuff where everything matters.

Gold said:

JohnRoberts said:

Screws just seemed a little out of whack to me...

Click to expand...

Try finding fasteners for record presses or letter presses or other stuff where everything matters.

Click to expand...

Yup, I pay way too much for low volumes of sundry hardware.. some screw clamps only come in 10ea packaging... but it isn't worth the time or capital to source large quantity. 

The good news is I can charge enough more when I resell to end users...

JR

I'm a big fan of boltdepot.com and have been using them for years. They offer onesy-twosy, 100s, and bulk prices.

Ethan said:

I'm a big fan of boltdepot.com and have been using them for years. They offer onesy-twosy, 100s, and bulk prices.

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They don't offer the finish I need (black oxide)  cost 2.5x the price I paid...

JR

[edit  The company I bought my screws from is micro fasteners, Eston PA... compare their prices for small hardware, next time you buy...  [/edit]

John.
Try these guys:
http://www.albanycountyfasteners.com/

Call them on the phone. If they don't stock it, they'll find it if it's made.

About the only thing they couldn't find for me is 2-56 phillips oval head in black 304 stainless.
So we just do the black here with Caswell chemicals.

Pretty good prices too.

Les
L M Watts Technology

leswatts said:

John.
Try these guys:
http://www.albanycountyfasteners.com/

Call them on the phone. If they don't stock it, they'll find it if it's made.

About the only thing they couldn't find for me is 2-56 phillips oval head in black 304 stainless.
So we just do the black here with Caswell chemicals.

Pretty good prices too.

Les
L M Watts Technology

Click to expand...

They do offer the finish I use, but their best 2500 pc price was $0.046...  I paid about half that, $0.024  for hundreds.  When my screws arrived they came in a single 1500 pc bag... so maybe if they offered a 1500 pc volume price it would be even cheaper...  ;D

I don't mean to make a federal case about this, just seems like a huge difference between $0.007 10k price and ALL lesser quantities from almost everybody.

JR

I guess it's overhead. When I think of it, I wouldn't want to be in the business of selling
2 cent things in hundreds quantity.

We use them for tiny fasters for the microphones...lots of 0-80 and 2-56
with socket head, oval, fillister, etc that tend to be hard to find.

Tapping things like 0-80 or 000-120 is a trip. We've gone to threadforming.
Threadformers don't break much. Hole size very critical though.

Les

Looks like you're screwed. 

leswatts said:

I guess it's overhead. When I think of it, I wouldn't want to be in the business of selling
2 cent things in hundreds quantity.

Click to expand...

amen...  these days shipping costs are so high, it's almost worth buying 2x what you need to spread the shipping cost over more units.

We use them for tiny fasters for the microphones...lots of 0-80 and 2-56
with socket head, oval, fillister, etc that tend to be hard to find.

Tapping things like 0-80 or 000-120 is a trip. We've gone to threadforming.
Threadformers don't break much. Hole size very critical though.

Les

Click to expand...

I used thread forming screws in my old extrusion... OK as long as you use them infrequently, and if stripped out you could go up one size (I never had to).

JR

PS: I recently went through a similar exercise to source some small screw (hose) clamps... Ended up buying them from some new vendor who was 2/3rd the price of McMaster Carr.... I could probably buy direct from the manufacturer in several K but don't want or need that many.