
Amazon Supply - timjahn
http://www.amazonsupply.com
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amac
I work for an Industrial Supply company and have monitored this since they
bought SmallParts.

Needless to say, Industrial Supply is a low margin, volume business that
requires high service levels. Most Industrial Supply companies sell the same
products, there really isn't a differentiator. As always in retail, price,
selection and availability are crucial in making sales.

This is a good match for Amazon, and obviously they have everything in place
already to make this a success e.g warehousing, payments, ordering channels
etc. It's worth noting most companies who seek industrial supply want credit -
amazon already accepts credit lines though obviously these are not as nice as
the cash they get instantly from credit cards and payments.

I guess the only thing Amazon lacks in this regard is a physical presence,
something that Grainger, Fastenal, Airgas etc and other Industrial Supply
companies have in hundreds/thousands of stores.

In terms of the market opportunity and potential success for Amazon,
Industrial Supply is a huge and fragmented sector. The leaders mentioned above
have low single digit market share, the same applies world-wide. The business
itself is not hugely profitable, but it moves slowly and hence is relatively
straight forward in regards to operation, forecasting and numbers.

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HeyLaughingBoy
Don't underestimate the benefit of physical presence. When I need something
_now_ , it is a _huge_ benefit to be able to walk into Fastenal and buy it on
the spot. Also, metal is heavy, again using Fastenal as an example, I can
order online and pickup instore without paying shipping. Prices are higher
than onlinemetals.com, or speedymetals.com but the convenience and no shipping
cost often trumps that.

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blake8086
You realize you still pay for shipping, right?

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jorgem
Isn't the "last mile" shipping much more expensive?

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ChuckMcM
I agree with most that the competitor here is McMaster-Carr. The collateral
damage could be places like Lowes/Home Depot etc (brick and mortar supply
stores) but agree with most here that SmallParts (which this was created out
of) didn't have quite the execution that McMaster-Carr does.

The other bit is there is the whole interaction model. In the fabricator world
they seem to get an account with one of these companies, order various bits
all month long and then get a roll up once a month or so on their purchases.
That doesn't seem to be an Amazon compatible model yet.

It will be interesting to see how it works out.

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oacgnol
Agreed, and I'd like to see what this competition will do with respect to
McMaster-Carr. For a school design project, I had to order parts from a
website and McMaster-Carr had by far the best website of any vendor. From a
cursory glance, the Amazon Supply site doesn't have quite the polish or flow
of McMaster's.

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joshu
Hmm. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but my McMaster catalog had way
more stepper motors in it than the website does?

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ggchappell
I guess I'm not quite sure what this is.

Say I want some gallium[1]. A search in Amazon turns it up, under "Industrial
& Scientific". But a search in AmazonSupply (which claims to cover
"scientific, industrial, & business") does not. So AmazonSupply is not just a
rebranding of Amazon's existing I&S section. What is it?

[1] You want it, too. Gallium melts at 30C, so it's a solid on your table, and
a liquid in your hand. Fun stuff!

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brokentone
That seems like an awesome thing. For the younger members here (and me) can
you speak to the danger of this substance? The MSDS for it didn't make it seem
too overly scary. Not too far beyond sand's danger (possible skin irritant).

Because it's already in my cart...

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DiabloD3
Gallium is poisonous. Do NOT ingest it or handle it without proper safety
precautions.

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ars
No it's not. Metallic Gallium is not considered poisonous.

I mean, I wouldn't eat it. But incidental handling is not going to hurt you.

There is some dispute on this, but if there is a dispute then that means it
can't be very poisonous.

This is accurate: <http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/gallium+safety>

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apechai
This is more likely to put mom & pop stores out of business than threaten the
big players like Fastenal, Grainger, McMaster-Carr and MSC Direct.

Mom & pops focus more on retail / small business customers who are price
sensitive, so this is going to hurt them.

But the big players mainly rely on their services because industrial and
commercial customers care more about minimizing downtime and reliability than
on price. The customer service at these companies is great and helps sort
through 1 million+ skews, which is completely different from picking 1 out of
20 TVs at Best Buy.

Their customers are companies like Caterpillar who need projects to be on time
and same day delivery. Fastenal even puts fasteners directly inside of bins on
the assembly lines so that the customer doesn't have to haul a huge chunks of
metal.

Amazon would have to seriously boost its service (ie, same day to location)
delivery to gain the non-retail customer base as well as expand its sales
staff expertise dramatically (which of the 1000 cutting tool bits do I need
for X job, what angle does it have to be installed at etc?). What this will do
is consolidate the industry with Amazon and the existing big players at the
expense of the mom & pops which are over 80% of the market.

It's a $140-160bn a year market. Just goes to show how much opportunity there
is in technology to expand outside of consumer-focused businesses.

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kayhi
We're a start up in this space although more focused on chemicals. They have a
quite a bit to do on the pricing front.

Petri Dishes, 100x15mm $133 vs. $79 (sterile, which is better) Amazon:
<http://bit.ly/I550u2> P212121: <http://store.p212121.com/petri-dishes/>

Allihn Condensers, 200mm Jacket, $85 vs. $43 Amazon: <http://bit.ly/I5PC3p>
P212121: <http://store.p212121.com/allihn-condenser/>

It will be fun to see how they adjust moving forward.

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jrockway
This is nice. I've occasionally wanted a big bar of copper, but I've never
known where to buy it. (The links to McMaster, however, are probably the most
helpful thing to come of this product announcement.)

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eru
Interest: what do you need that bar for?

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jrockway
Nothing. I just like copper.

~~~
joshu
Similarly, I have always wanted a cube of tungsten or similar.

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evandena
Prices are still twice as high as the items I spot checked from McMaster

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blhack
To anybody that doesn't know what you're talking about:

<http://www.mcmaster.com/>

It's a hardware store that sells pretty much every single part you could
imagine or need.

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ConstantineXVI
I've never found Amazon's site particularly well done, but they could
definitely learn a thing or seven from that site.

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skore
Amazon is not about getting you to fill your purchase order with the parts
list of your latest project. It's about trapping you and selling you things
you didn't know you wanted.

What would you want Amazon to learn from them?

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jgmmo
This seems pretty bold to me? Anyone else suprised by this? Could put alot of
pressure on home improvement retailers and industrial suppliers. Reminds me of
Octopart - right? that YC supply search startup?

In any event, this is very cool. Especially for home robotics hobbyist :)

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SeanLuke
First thing I checked for was Nitinol. The awesomest alloy on the planet.

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Natsu
Care to explain more?

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weavejester
One interesting property of nitinol is that it remembers a preconfigured shape
when heated to a certain temperature:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7jjqXh7bB4>

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abruzzi
Unfortunately, I couldn't find most of the types of pieces I use (2"x 4"
square tubing, 2" square tubing, 2 3/4" round tubing--all steel.) For a
hobbyist, this could be a god send if they would carry the pieces I need. I
have plenty of local places that sell the metal scrap I need, but all are
attuned to construction/fabrication business hours, and none have weekend
hours for a hobbyist welder that wants to build a bull bar for his
Landcruiser.

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gaustin
Some cool stuff, but not much I need with any regularity. Other sources are
more than fine. I'll be excited when they stock the types of high-carbon
steels that Aldo Bruno[0] sells.

I'm still waiting for someone to disrupt the hard to search supply shops like
Jantz: <http://www.knifemaking.com/Default.asp>

0: <http://njsteelbaron.com/>

~~~
TylerE
They are offering free shipping on orders over $50... I wonder if they honor
Prime also? Might be rather lucrative (for the customer) as steel is
deceptively heavy in bulk. Thinking about stuff like the 1" steel rod I used
to use as material in shop class for lathe work.

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JshWright
Doesn't seem that deceptive to me...

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cpeterso
I was going to post a joke about Amazon customer reviews of their favorite
alloys, but the review forms are actually a real thing!

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sakai
McMaster Carr must be shuddering right now.

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tesseract
This looks like a rebrand of SmallParts which Amazon bought a while ago.
Pricing and searchability were always worse than McMaster and it doesn't seem
dramatically improved now.

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kulkarnic
Yes, it is rebranded SmallParts. From their FAQ
(<http://www.amazonsupply.com/help/200223050/ref=sp_ft_au>):

What happened to SmallParts.com? SmallParts, Inc., joined the Amazon family in
2005. In the past seven years, the dedicated team at SmallParts helped us
expand our service and selection until we have grown well beyond our original
focus of tubing, parts and fasteners for the medical supply and research
industries. We have chosen the name AmazonSupply to help communicate our new,
broader selection....

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brokentone
I wonder both how much business this is going to take from other outlets as
well as how much will be new business. People like me who never knew they
needed or could easily get random alloys to play with. The big banners for
Amazon Prime suggest there may be some of that.

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K2h
I can see my personal use of amazonsupply just because I already use amazon at
home (its the new walmart of the web if you haven't heard).

at work --- not so much. have to create an account to charge to, worry about
lead times. not worth it.

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StuartJenner
Nice. I've always needed wood chippers. Don't ask what I need them for.

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gcb
It's exactly the same crappy stuff they have on the regular site.

everything there i could find on amazon.com, and from my experience buying
small lab tools from them, it's a 80% return rate.

last one was a set of precision tweezers which only 1/3 of them properly
closed in alignment.

The good brands are 2x and 3x the price at a proper store.

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dsl
Sounds like you have had the usual experience with 3rd party sellers on
Amazon. Never ever buy from them!

These parts are being directly stocked and sold by Amazon.

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eru
> Sounds like you have had the usual experience with 3rd party sellers on
> Amazon. Never ever buy from them!

As a counter-anecdote, I can't remember problems with 3rd party sellers. But
then I'm only buying stuff like books.

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DavidAbrams
Not ready for prime time. Log-ins don't work right, and even their CAPTCHA on
the password-recovery screen is totally broken.

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StuartJenner
Does Amazon sell nanomorph mimetic poly-alloys too?

