[spacemark]

I've probably put in 100 McMaster orders over the last year via work, side gig, and home projects. My take on this is that their prime customers (businesses) do not put shipping costs in their top 5 or maybe even top 10 priorities. Businesses pushing out products or engaged in rapid prototyping or meeting a deadline are much more concerned with speed, and McMaster always beats Amazon in shipping time to my workplace (usually less than 24 hours from order to delivery, no joke). Their customer also values accurate technical data so they've put a lot of effort into CAD models and are very responsive to customer service calls.

In short, they know their customer persona. I wouldn't hold my breath that they'll add upfront shipping costs any time soon!

[daniel_reetz]

This exactly matches my experience. I run a prototyping shop in the LA area. I get items the very same day from McMaster. That kind of feedback loop is priceless. They ship with DGC for most deliveries, and DGC is usually cost-competitive with any other service.