the management of grainger are absolute total morons.

they turned off all the telephones in the branches, and made everyone call a phone center if you had any questions.

now if the question was do you have part number 4z536 in stock at my local branch, that was maginally ok. assuming the inventory was accurate. if the inventory was wrong you were screwed.....

customers would get really mad if they drove across town and found the inventory was wrong, the item out of stock.

if you happened to be calling them to ask does the 4z536 motor have a mounting stud on its corner.

hopeless with the customer asking the call center rep who had to put the question in a email to the branch, who had to read the email and try to figure out the question, then respond by email to the call center, who had to try to understand the response and call the customer back.

this suit idea never did work like call branch and ask. eventually they restored some phones in the branches, but the damage was done. i heard it cost them 23% of their sales and they never got them back.

then the college suit crowd said we will cut inventory to the bone, all that money tierd up in inventory is a waste

with just one of most items in branches the customer might be able to buy one, but might get zero if someone else had already bought that only one in stock earlier in the day..

I used to buy cases of the 4z536 motors, but then had to order them and wait.