Just some insight into this "sale" issue:
I have been buying a lot of stuff in the last few months to setup my new shop. I'm signed up on ENCO and MSC emails both. What I've observed is that they first of all WAY over price most items. Then they are almost CONTINUALLY in these "sale wars" with some various sale every week, and sometimes multiple sales in any given week, and FREQUENTLY, the emails hit from both sites like clock-work "coincidentally" on almost the same hour of the same mornings. Also, every item you buy, take a few minutes to SHOP around the internet before you commit, even if it's on "sale". I've even bought a few machinist-type items from Amazon.com that beat the price of either ENCO or MSC
while on "sale", and with amazon prime, the shipping is usually free.
Lesson learned: NEVER buy anything from those two machine-supply websites unless it's on sale, unless you have to have it now. Wait a few days, and there will almost certainly be some kind of sale or at least free shipping. About the best one I've found so far is the MSC 25-40% off PLUS free shipping. I've "saved" a lot doing that, but I also just bought some threading bits from ENCO at about a 30% "
discount". Seems to me the conclusion is that they should just price stuff reasonably in the first place and stop trying to continually trigger people's momentary impulses to buy something "NOW!". It's silly, unnecessary, and just breeds more discontent, wandering if tomorrow they will launch a 30% sale, when you just bought something on 25% today.
Make no mistake, I'm only confirming and agreeing with everything everyone has said on this thread so far. Absolutely buy when the sale hits, but just realize that was their marketing scheme anyway: to sell most of their stuff "on sale", which are actually prices geared toward something more normal anyway.
Just trying to help, and only one guy's observation.
MSC and ENCO will probably put a hit on me now
RIO