To Anyone that buys from ENCO in US..

[Jimbojones]

ENCO is being absorbed by their sister company, MSC in the US as of Aug/16.

If you know both companies, you will know that they offer comparable (even identical) products....but MSC charges 2-3x as much! Even with the frequent emailed discount codes, MSC still ends up be notably more expensive.

After speaking with an Enco rep, he mentioned that the entire Enco price structure is simply going to vanish; there will only be MSC current pricing.

I'd suggest placing any orders with Enco soon to get the reduced regular pricing.

FWIW - I'm planning on placing a large order and I get them shipped to a drop box in Montana to save on UPS freight & importation costs. If anyone want to place/pay for an order and have it shipped to Montana and is willing to pay the (relatively) small cost of storing/retrieving it from there, I'd be willing to get your order when I make the trip.

Most likely will be going end of July; PM me here for details/to arrange.

 

[PeterT]

Ya I read that on another forum. Last time I tried ordering from Enco back in Feb they were not set up to ship to Canada. I cant recall, maybe I was trying to circumvent UPS dinger fees to Canada & requesting shipping to In-USA shipping destination with my Reship.com Oregon address to redirect. I spoke with a humanoid in their International sales. I tried setting up an account with them using my CC but even the payment aspect was a headache. They couldn't charge a Canadian CC or accept Paypal...? I ended getting the item through other channels. Have you been a frequent buyer from Enco & if so, how have you gone about ordering?

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INPAGE?PMPAGE=CustomerSupport/International.htm
Enco does not ship orders outside of the United States or its territories. For customers located outside of the United States or its territories, we will ship your order to the U.S.-based freight forwarder of your choice. In addition, Enco reserves the right to request and verify additional shipping and payment information before processing orders placed by our international customers.

 

[Jimbojones]

They stopped shipping to Canada at least 3 years ago so I too got some US ship/store services in Montana and usually only ordered once/year since the trip takes much of a day. Never had a problem with payment via Credit Card (Mastercard) but last order was 1.5yrs ago so maybe they dropped that too. Rep I talked to today didn't mention payment would be an issue but of course, reality will dictate once the order is actually placed.

Real shame business is headed in that direction; I priced out some (approx) comparisons:
- Interstate HSS tap/die set: Enco 560, MSC 1080
- individual OSG tap: Enco 16 MSC 40

both offer occassional discounts (up to 30%) but even with MSC steepest discount, still doesnt match Enco reg price

Really hoping ENCO has at least 1 more discount before they vanish; 20% is pretty typical for them but unsure if they'll be offering any more since MSC wants to boost profits and is willing to alienate (tens?) thousands of customers by simply turning the lights off @ Enco.

If anyone gets email/promo info from ENCO feel free to post in this thread as getting our last orders placed 'on sale' will make the shopping list a bit longer

 

[JohnW]

I ordered from them in June (25% off plus free shipping). I had it delivered to a motel in Oregon where I had a reservation and paid with a MasterCard (it is a US$ MC with a Canadian bank, but they don't know that) with no problem. I have ordered from them in the past and had it shipped to Canada, but that was a bunch of years ago. In the last several years, I've tended to order once a year or so, and ship it to somewhere I am staying in the US and then bring it back with me under my personal exemption. The June order had to be relatively small and lightweight as I was travelling by motorcycle.

 

[PeterT]

Thanks, that all makes sense. In the absence of being in the Sates much myself I've used Reship.com for similar purchases. As you mentioned, one can get some good deals shipping inside USA. Reship is in Oregon so they don't charge state tax. I still pay them a fee to redirect home of course, but you can choose shipping mode/declared amount. BTW the Enco item I was hot after was a traversing boring head (222-1100). Its really nice, Taiwan made I think. Enco is the only company that sells this model. A brand new one goes for a fraction what a used euro traversing model like Wohlhaupter or Narex net on Ebay.

Interesting about your CC. We tried every trick in the book to order from McMaster Carr with similar cards but they somehow always knew it tied to Bank of Kanukistan & terminated transaction. My buddy was going to get a CC from a US bank but I never heard how it panned out. Crazy the hoops we have to jump through.

 

[JohnW]

to In reference to the CC, they can tell what bank it is from, but most companies do not actively look. They just hand it to the processing company with the number and how many US$. The first 6 digits of any banking or credit card identify the issuing bank. Wikipedia explains the numbering scheme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number.

Mine starts with 519269, which is listed as Canadian based BMO US$ MasterCard here: http://www.stevemorse.org/ssn/List_of_Bank_Identification_Numbers.html. So they can tell if they actively try. Most places don't care though.

McMaster Carr is up against some US trade restrictions that they don't want to do the paperwork for. It is apparently illegal for them to ship some stuff out of the country (like grade x bolts where x is greater than some arbitrary number) without verifying a bunch of stuff about who their ultimate customer is. I think they got in trouble with some level of US trade enforcement a few years ago, and now they are trying to make them do all sorts of work identifying and tracking of customers, which they think is completely unprofitable (it probably involves filling out 10 pages of complex silly forms to make a $100 sale). MC has decided to actively not deal with new customers outside of the US. As far as I know, if you had a Canadian account with them before all this happened, they will still sell to you, but not to any new customers. Maybe the law grandfathers existing customers?

Even with an Enco purchase shipped to the US, they ask if the ultimate destination for the purchase is outside of the US. I always say no, and they've been fine with that. One of these days some US law enforcement agency will be waiting for me at my hotel room to see what I do with the purchase. I just choose to (mis)-interpret that question to mean whether I am going to immediately use a shipping company to forward the shipment, which I am not doing. I am apparently opening the package, using the goods in some fashion and then bringing the used goods back with me to Canada.

 

[Janger]

Why is it so hard to get stuff to Canada? McMaster Carr certainly has a lot of top secret supplies. Like case hardener & band saw blades ....

 

[PeterT]

I think JohnW pretty much nailed it, that's the same thing MMC told me when I inquired. I used to get all sorts of stuff from them, then at some point they just decided all the Nafta paperwork wasn't worth it. I know some companies & institutions in Canada that still are able to deal with them (bigger $ accounts), but you wont have much luck as an individual. If there is something they have I want real bad I will use a re-purchaser. I mentioned Reship.com as a parcel re-director, but they also provide a purchasing service. You give them an itemized list with web links, they order on your behalf, all the goodies arrive to their location & then redirect to you. That also can save you on shipping by collecting orders & specifying shipping mode. But custom ordering is a fee based thing so tends to add up too. The thing about MMC isn't so much that they carry anything super special you cant get elsewhere. They don't make anything. Its just the overall selection is huge, great 1-stop shopping & better smaller quantity selection.

 

[BMW Rider]

I never have ordered anything from Enco. I looked at them for some items, but in the end the shipping and exchange made it too costly to bother. I have been going to KBC tools for most of my stuff now. They are excellent to deal with, ship quickly and at decent costs. They have a lot of their store branded items for the cost conscious and name brand stuff for those who want the best quality.

 

[Jimbojones]

(ground UPS) Shipping with Enco was typically free within US and promo codes went as deep as 30% plus they had monthly sales and allowed you to stack discounts. In some cases, my landed cost was almost 1/2 of KBC including exchange. I will admit waiting for a sale, driving 3 hrs to pick up and then processing through Customs wasn't 'fun' but it saved me $1k+ a year.

KBC really turned me off when I went to their office in BC and looked at their 'showroom'; tiny space with a handful of products crammed in it. Want to see/get a quote on a lathe I saw in their catalogue and although they allegedly had it in their warehouse
1) they couldnt show it to me
2) they couldnt give me a quote on the spot, even after I explained that I was from Calgary and only passing through.

So they took my info and sent me a quote 2 WEEKS LATER! To add insult, the guy padded the quote with over $1k in tooling that was never discussed/requested and labeled it generically as 'accessories'. When I challenged him on the mystery line item, he said 'oh yeah, most guys already want a bundle of tools so we just include that in all of our machine quotes'. Told him to take his nonsense and choke on it.

Experiences may vary.

 

[Dabbler]

My experience with KBC is that you have to hand-hold them at every step. For the things that they have exclusively (like indexing 4-way tool posts) it's worth it, even though I have to educate the salesperson about every aspect of the order. Tedious, but the (very) few items I have ordered have been worth it. Never tried Enco due to the duplicity required. Probably paid too much @ KBC.

I now am selectively buying from the local Kinemetal distributor, paying par or +10% over Chinese made for carbide stuff that is a lot more reliable. They even threw in 20 carbides for a boring bar I needed, made in India (brand starts with a 'G') but the carbides were bona fide Kinemetal ones. So far, happy.

 

[Jimbojones]

I had a bit of hassle on the Enco40/MSC code they recently sent out but got it fixed. Placed my (final) order and spent a bit too much . Even with the frequent discounts that MSC sends out, their 'list prices' are just too high and I don't buy enough to warrant an on-going discount with them.

RIP Enco