A distributor engineers a digital partnership

MSC Industrial, a large public US distributor of industrial supplies and metal working products, has a new exclusive ecommerce partnership with MachiningCloud

MachiningCloud, which launched in 2020, is an internet software platform for more than 100,000 users involved in the sales of industrial machining tools from more than 50 brands, including Kennametal, 3DLive, Fullteron Tool Co., Ingersoll Cutting Tools and Jergens. It expects to have more than 200 brands by the end of this year, says Matthew Nicholson, MachiningCloud’s director of sales and marketing.

To prepare for purchasing, buyers on MachiningCloud can search among suppliers’ product catalogs, access product data they can integrate into their CAD/CAM programming systems, develop custom tool assemblies, and view 2D or 3D models.

Soon buyers will also have a new ecommerce purchasing option. MachiningCloud is launching a new ecommerce engine that it expects to “go live in 30 – 60 days,” Nicholson says.

Once the ecommerce engine is active, buyers on the platform will be able to add products to an online shopping cart, where they will see a button that tells them to “proceed to MSCDirect.com for checkout,” Nicholson says. Buyers will also have the option to add more items on MSCDirect.com before completing their order.

MSC will fulfill orders from its own inventory when available, or  forward orders to suppliers for drop-shipping. MachiningCloud and MSC did not disclose the terms of their agreement.

Jamie Goettler, senior director of metalworking sales and innovation at MSC, says MSC views its arrangement with MachiningCloud as a way to help customers increase their productivity by finding “the right combination of tool components to create complete assemblies for their applications.”

Dan Frayssineet, president of MachiningCloud, says his company went with MSC for ecommerce “due to its deep relationship with all of the top metalworking brands and the deep metalworking expertise that its associates offer.”

MachiningCloud charges its customers subscription fees on a per-individual basis, at $149 per month or $1,499 per year, Nicholson says.